Celebrating ingenuity in the property industry
The steam train. The vaccine. The television. The World Wide Web. The tenancy renewal fee.
What connects them all? Each one is an incredibly successful British invention.
Yes, we may no longer have the manufacturing prowess that once sustained all corners of the country, but a certain group of entrepreneurs have exerted their creative minds to produce the £250 photocopy, and are currently raking it in.
One promise the Prime Minister must keep
Theresa May has broken her word. She ruled out a snap election five times, then called one.
Our question is: what other promises is she going to tear up?
The government is consulting now on proposals to ban letting fees, and the deadline of 2 June is a week before polling day.
Proposed ban on letting fees unveiled
For four and a half months we’ve been waiting with bated breath for the government’s proposals to ban fees, and today they were unveiled as the government finally launched its consultation.
The policy is no half-measure – tenants will not have to pay fees in connection with their tenancy outside of rent, refundable deposit, holding deposit and extra services they require during the course of the tenancy (e.g. replacing lost keys).
Generation Rent wins prestigious campaigning award
Last night, Generation Rent was handed the Housing and Homelessness Award at the 2017 Sheila McKechnie Foundation awards in London.
The award was in recognition of our work in the past year to mobilise renters as a political force, which culminated in the government’s announcement of a ban on letting fees in November.
Sean Cosgrove
Sean Cosgrove is a CIPFA accountant and project manager with ten years’ experience of local government financial management and strategy development. He is currently advising Clapton Park Tenant Management Organisation in North London.
Four new trustees help bolster the organisation
We are pleased to welcome four new trustees who have joined the Generation Rent board since the start of the year.
Daniel Bentley, Sean Cosgrove, Betsy Dillner and Hannah Williams bring with them decades of experience in political communications, financial management, movement building and business development.
Hannah Williams
Hannah Williams founded RentalRaters in 2013, which allows tenants to review their previous landlords. She is Director of Technology at Harvard PR, with 14 years’ experience in marketing and communications.
Housing Greater Manchester
When you mention the housing crisis, people tend to think of London and of campaign groups like Focus E15. There is good reason for this – the capital has experienced the worst excesses of the housing crisis, and the pushback there has been among the most dynamic in the country. Yet London is not alone in having a housing crisis, and in recent years the effects of a dysfunctional housing system have been making themselves felt in Greater Manchester.
Home ownership at 30-year low
Just 62.9% of England’s population owns their home – the lowest proportion since 1985. And the private rented population now stands at 4.5m households, up on last year and bigger than in 1961, when slum landlords like Peter Rachman were making tenants’ lives a misery.
These are the big findings of the English Housing Survey Headline Report, the first of two releases of the government-commissioned survey for 2015-16.
At this rate, there will be more private renters than mortgage holders in just five years’ time. It’s already the largest tenure in London.
Brighton and Bournemouth letting fees – all in one place
Even though the government has promised to ban letting fees, our crowdsourced research project at lettingfees.co.uk continues to build up a picture of renter exploitation around the country. Renters in Bournemouth and Brighton & Hove now have an online comparison of letting fees in their area, which will help them avoid the rogues who are either charging excessive fees or just not publishing theirs.