Generation Rent

Transport for London has banned adverts for holiday let companies that take homes away from Londoners, following a successful campaign against the anti-tenant adverts by Generation Rent. 

New advertising guidelines will mean that any advertising that encourages removing homes from the private rental market will be banned from the TfL estate.

The victory comes after over 8000 renters signed a Generation Rent petition asking TfL to drop adverts from short term lets company Hostmaker.  In the adverts, Hostmaker told landlords they could increase their yield by 30% by ditching tenants and switching their properties to short term lets.

The new policy, which can be found here, states that any adverts seen to do the following would be  banned from the network:

• imply that removing properties from the private rental market for other rental purposes (such as short term lets to tourists) can be financially or materially advantageous to property owners.
• promote companies or services which appear to rely on property owners removing their properties from the private rented sector.
• appear to conflate short term lets with lettings in the private rented sector. The type of lettings the advert is promoting should be unambiguous.
• advertise services for both types of lettings.
• use phrases or terms associated with short term lets where they are ostensibly advertising services relating to lettings in the private rented sector, or vice versa.

Georgie Laming, Campaigns Manager at Generation Rent said;

“This is a huge victory for renters in London. Living in London is already tough, paying sky high rents for cramped housing, without being attacked every time we take public transport by adverts encouraging landlords to get rid of our homes. It’s great news that now, any adverts encouraging the loss of long term, private rented housing will be blocked.

“But without a better system of regulation, enforcement and taxation that prevents landlords from taking homes out of the longer term market, renters will continue to lose out from the rise of holiday lets.” 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said;

 “I am doing everything in my power to make housing more affordable for Londoners. When everyone sticks to the rules, short-term lettings can help people earn a little extra money and they provide more options for visitors. But it is clearly wrong when companies encourage hosts to break the rules, and when services seem to rely on homes being taken out of the private rented sector altogether for financial gain. That’s why I welcome TfL issuing guidelines to ban adverts that encourage unlawful short-term letting and that make it harder for Londoners looking for somewhere to rent.”

NOTES:

For further information, please contact Georgie Laming on georgie@generationrent.org or 07950 399281.

Generation Rent is the national voice of private renters. We exist to make sure renting is safe, fair and secure. www.generationrent.org

• You can find pictures from Generation Rent’s campaign here 
• The petition was hosted on 38 Degrees and can be seen here
• More information on Generation Rent’s hostmaker campaign can be found here 

The new advertising guidelines can be found here

• Current legislation in London means that any property rented out as a short term let for longer than 90 days would need new planning permission. 
• Hostmaker were exposed by the BBC trying to help landlords skirt the law: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47305575

One of the great things about the Tenant Fees Act is that you can save money whether you move home or stay put. 

Since June, tenants signing an agreement on a new home in England do not have to pay letting agent fees. (As of yesterday, the ban applies across the UK.)

But there's been less fanfare for the cap on deposits at five weeks' rent, which means that a tenant renewing the agreement on their current home could get a refund if their deposit is worth more than that.

Deposits are behind some of the most common problems we hear about from renters:

• tenants' money doesn't get protected
• the struggle to get deposits back when moving home
• and many of us are unable to afford them in the first place

The good news is the government is looking at how the deposits system can be improved and is asking for renters' experiences until 5 September. This is your chance to share your experience of deposits and help change the system. 

There are now three live government consultations that could help to reshape the private rental market.

One is on reforming tenancy deposits (deadline for responses 2 September), the second is on abolishing Section 21 evictions (deadline 12 October) and the third, announced last Sunday as well, proposes giving tenants access to a government database of criminal landlords.  

It's finally here! After announcing in April its intention to abolish Section 21, the government has published its proposals for making this happen.

We've been through the consultation document, which is open for responses until 12 October, and here's a quickish summary of what's in it. 

We'll be preparing our own response, but we also want to hear what you think. And most importantly, we're looking at how to make it easy for renters to respond and make sure the government does this right.

The Mayor of London has come out firmly in favour of our campaign to end unfair evictions - and has pushed the government to give him powers to bring in rent controls in the capital.

He was elected in 2016 on a pledge to shake up London's private rented sector, and now, after a long consultation period, Sadiq Khan has unveiled his proposals.

The letting fees ban is great and all, but now fees are out of the way, you still have to scrape together a large deposit before you can move home. 

Well, we thought about that - last year we proposed a system where you could transfer part of your deposit to your next tenancy, once you'd done responsible things like pay your final month's rent. We called this deposit passporting.

We couldn't get it into the Tenant Fees Act (which came into force this month), but the government has been looking at it and today announced its support for deposit passporting!

After years of waiting, England's Tenant Fees Ban is finally here. It means that letting agents and landlords won’t be able to charge extortionate fees when you move to a new home. Here are the top 6 things you need to know about the ban:

You read that right: before the ban on letting fees has even come into force (this Saturday, folks), letting agents are already flouting existing laws on fees. Since 2015 agents have been supposed to display details of the fees they charge tenants online, but we've found 21 that are not.

Local councils could be collecting £5000 in fines for these offences, so the fact that agents are still getting away with it does not fill us with confidence that the fees ban will be enforced effectively.

Last month’s announcement that the Government intends to abolish section 21 evictions and create open-ended tenancies rightly took the limelight, but alongside it was published the Government response to last summer’s longer tenancies consultation. As we all look ahead to the forthcoming reforms that will create a secure, open-ended tenancy, adjust legitimate grounds for eviction, and streamline the court process, it’s useful to dig back into the detail of the consultation responses to understand how tenants, landlords, and letting agents understand the barriers to and benefits of longer tenancies.

Here are some key take-aways from the consultation responses which should be borne in mind as the new open-ended tenancy and wider private rental market reforms are shaped.