Met appeal to trace bogus landlord
At least six renters in London have been ripped off to the tune of £30,000 since April by a fraudster posing as a landlord.
The Met Police have issued an alert today for information to catch the suspect, pictured below, and have asked members of the public to call 101 and quote reference 1217609/15.
Mayor of London backs indefinite tenancies
At the Labour party conference this week, delegates adopted a motion to (among other things) “Help private renters with an end to ‚Äòno fault’ evictions, controls on rents and new minimum standards, including three year tenancies as standard.”
The BBC reported on this commitment, but beyond the wording of this motion and John Healey’s speech, we haven’t had any more detail of what this would entail.
Luckily, Sadiq Khan has obliged. While the Mayor of London is not a member of the Shadow Cabinet, last week’s publication of his response to the government’s consultation on longer tenancies revealed that he is calling for much the same thing, plus some more idea of what it might look like in practice.
New mayoral strategy develops plans for London’s private renters
Two million tenants in London will welcome the fact that getting a fairer deal for private renters is one of the Mayor of London’s five priorities for housing in the London Housing Strategy, which was published at the end of May. Given that Sadiq Khan’s housing powers are highly limited, what is his strategy promising to private renters in London?
London’s renters are not getting enough protection from their council
With the votes counted in last week’s London borough elections we now have some new council leaders. One of their responsibilities is to make sure local private renters are living in safe homes. But judging by the 32 councils’ record in 2016-17, they have a lot of work to do.
London Boroughs took action against just 1 percent of the capital’s worst landlords in 2016-17. That’s just one of the findings that we’ve uncovered in new analysis of Freedom of Information data – the basis of a new league table of council performance.
Rented London: How local authorities can support private renters
Local council elections are taking place in London in a few months. And just like the 2016 Mayoral race, these contests will be dominated by the city’s housing crisis. From Haringey to Kensington and Chelsea, Londoners are looking for secure and affordable homes, and asking their councils to respond.
Build-to-Rent: A new vision for London housing, but who is it for?
For many years, debates around housing supply have suggested that a model needs to be worked up that leverages investment into building new long-term, professionally managed privately rented accommodation, as is much more normal in other countries around the world.
Generation Rent has always argued that new supply will only help a small percentage of lucky renters, and that the priority should be to support legislative reform that would improve things for the over two million London renters in existing stock.
The London Living Rent: Winners, Losers and the Rest of Us (Part 2 – tenancies)
In September, following the Mayor’s release of some details for this London Living Rent proposal, we blogged about concerns around how genuinely affordable this new tenure would be, and what was needed to ensure it was part of the solution to London’s housing crisis.
This follow-up piece looks at what wasn’t covered in the first blog – broadly, tenancy types – and how again they might best serve Londoners just looking for somewhere affordable and secure to live.
The London Living Rent: Winners, Losers and the Rest of Us (Part 1 – rent levels)
During his recent visit to New York City, the Mayor of London took the opportunity to announce one of his key pre-election pledges for the private rented sector, the London Living Rent.
Doing so while overseas was both surprising and interesting and his visit to New York highlighted the challenges facing the Mayors of both cities.
Making overseas investment work for Londoners
The issue of foreign investors pumping money into the London property market has once again been raised by last night’s BBC report on a rise in overseas investment in the outer London boroughs, and how this provides competition for first-time buyers.
Private renters are Londoners too…
As Sadiq Khan announced the membership of his new Homes for Londoners board last week, the private rented sector was conspicuous by its absence. Despite close to one third of Londoners privately renting, the new body has not yet made provision for either tenants’ voices to be heard, nor for a clear focus on the PRS to be part of HfL’s work.