For UK halls of residence and PBSA operators
A UK student building that answers on WhatsApp, with every repair owned by someone
Sunday, 23:10. A first-year sends the building's WhatsApp a photo of water spreading from under the radiator and no words. Bedel opens the repair ticket, replies with its number and classifies it as plumbing. The building has marked leaks as high priority, so it goes straight to the maintenance person on shift, with buttons to accept it and say when they will come. Whoever sent the photo hears about every step, and the ticket is closed with a photo of the repair.
What a resident writes, and what happens to it
| What the resident writes | What Bedel does |
|---|---|
| A photo of a leak, without a word | The photo is enough to open the ticket. It replies with the ticket number and sends it to the role that handles plumbing |
| A voice note: "the light on the second-floor landing is out" | It transcribes it and treats it as text: category, urgency and the area of the org chart that handles it |
| "It smells of burning in the bin store", at 3:00 | Urgent: the notice goes to everyone in the role at once, at any hour, even if the building holds non-urgent notices overnight |
| "Is there a parcel for me?" | The front desk logs what arrives from the dashboard or with "/paquete", and Bedel tells the resident on WhatsApp |
| "Can I book the study room tomorrow at six?" | It books the slot the building has set up, with its capacity and weekly limit, and never twice |
| "I want to talk about my rent" | Money, health, exceptions and conflicts are not for a machine: it goes to one specific person's phone, by role and shift |
Why the building's WhatsApp, and not a group
Residents already write on WhatsApp, and many teams already run on a group. The trouble with the group is that a leak, the rota and a photo of last night's mess sit in the same thread, nobody knows who took the job, and nothing records when it started. Bedel never writes to a group: each notice goes to one person, chosen by the role and shift you set, and every tap on a button leaves its time.
Repairs: an owner, a deadline and a photo of the fix
- Each category has its deadline in hours, its SLA, and you set it. A reminder goes to whoever holds the ticket at 50 % and at 85 % of the deadline.
- An urgent ticket that goes overdue rings again once a day; after three days, management is told once, without taking the ticket from anyone.
- If the same fault was fixed in the same room in the last twelve months, the technician's notice says so and lists the earlier tickets.
- Low-priority faults do not ring at once: they go into the role's summary each morning.
- Every morning, management gets one message with the tickets nobody has taken. More in faults and incidents.
What UK rules ask of the building, and what Bedel has to do with it
No rule requires Bedel. Two things a UK operator already has to do are where a dated record of repairs helps. In England and Wales, the responsible person must keep the premises and their fire safety facilities and equipment under "a suitable system of maintenance" (Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, art. 17); a ticket that records who reported a fault, who took it and when it was closed is evidence of that system working, not a substitute for the fire risk assessment. And a shared house can be an HMO (Housing Act 2004, s. 254), with the licensing and management duties that follow; what changed in England on 1 May 2026 with the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and what changes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is in the UK regulation page.
Data: hosted in the EU, and what that means from the UK
The data lives in the European Union (Ireland). Under the Data Protection Act 2018, transfers from the UK to EEA countries are treated as approved by regulations (Sch. 21, paras. 4 and 5). The residence stays the controller and Bedel is its processor, with the processing agreement published, as UK GDPR Art. 28 requires. The AI model runs in the US under standard contractual clauses; how that onward transfer is covered for UK data is agreed before signing.
How it starts
- A half-hour session with whoever runs the building and whoever runs maintenance: who handles what, the categories with their deadline, what is urgent at 2:00 and who is on call.
- The number: the one residents already have, or a new one connected to Meta's official platform.
- The building's information Bedel may use: house rules, opening hours, how the laundry works. What is not written down goes to a person.
- Your room rack in a spreadsheet, if you want Bedel to know who lives where. It reads it and returns it up to date; it does not replace your housing system.
What it does not do, said before the call
- It is not a housing management system or a PMS: no room allocation, contracts, rent or billing, and it does not connect to the one you use.
- It has no portfolio view: one account is one building. An operator with several blocks has one account per block.
- Your team's side is in Spanish today: the notices, the buttons and the commands. Residents are answered in their own language.
- It does not control access: no keys, QR codes or turnstiles.
- It does not translate what the team writes to a resident in the direct chat, nor the announcements.
Questions
Do you already work with residences in the UK?
Not yet. The residences that use Bedel today are in Spain. The product is the same; what changes for a UK building, from the contract to the data transfer, is agreed before signing.
Does it replace our student housing system?
No. Bedel answers the building's WhatsApp and organises what comes in through it: questions, repairs, parcels and bookings. Rooms, contracts and rent stay in the system you already have. The only thing it can share with it is the room rack, in a spreadsheet.
In what language does our maintenance team receive the tickets?
In Spanish, today: the notices, the buttons to accept a job and the commands are written in Spanish. Residents are answered in the language they write in. Say so on the call if your team needs them in English.
Can a UK residence keep its data in the European Union?
Yes. The Data Protection Act 2018 treats transfers from the UK to EEA countries as approved by regulations. The residence still needs a processing agreement with its provider and has to tell residents how their data is used. If data then goes to the US, that transfer needs its own cover.
Does a resident need to install an app?
No. They write to the building's WhatsApp, the number they already have. Whoever fixes the fault receives it on their own WhatsApp, with buttons.
Bedel in Europe
- WhatsApp maintenance reporting for UK businessesFor any UK business with premises: staff report faults on WhatsApp, each one reaches whoever fixes it with a deadline, and every step keeps its time.
- Student accommodation software in Europe, on WhatsAppStudent accommodation and premises across Europe: what governs each country, and what Bedel does there on WhatsApp.
- Student accommodation software on WhatsApp in IrelandFor student specific accommodation in Ireland: the building's WhatsApp answers residents in their language and every repair has an owner and a deadline.
- WhatsApp maintenance reporting for businesses in IrelandFor any business with premises in Ireland: staff report faults on WhatsApp, each reaches whoever fixes it with a deadline, and every step keeps its time.