Get your MP to back renters
It was announced on Thursday that the House of Commons will be debating the Private Renting Sector next Wednesday 25th June from about 12.30-5pm.
There are over 9 million private renters in Britain increasingly getting a rough deal from landlords and letting agents. We’d like you write to your MP asking them to back our renters’ manifesto to create a fair and sustainable rental market for both tenants and landlords.
We’re also calling for a secondary, bubble-free housing market for those people who just want to buy or rent a home for a reasonable cost rather than an investment at a high cost.
Click here to contact your MP now!
Many thanks,
Alex
Renters’ £95m deposit rip-off
Generation Rent today launches a discussion paper on reforming tenancy deposit protection, as another scandal emerges around a criminal letting agent that fraudulently used renters’ money that was ‚Äòprotected’ under an insurance-based scheme.
Why banning letting agent fees won’t push up rents
Supply and demand.
Oh you wanted more than that? Ok.
There is short supply and high demand for homes to rent. The balance between these forms a price that a tenant is willing to pay a landlord. So far not controversial.
However, that is not how the relationship between tenant and agent is characterised. At the time of signing a contract, the agent is the gatekeeper to a single home with any number of keen tenants. The agent is not an actor in the market for homes to rent but a creator of micro-monopolies for single homes.
Life after Section 21
Today is the 30th anniversary of the Housing Act 1988 receiving Royal Assent and becoming law. The Act introduced the assured shorthold tenancy, and, with it, Section 21, the ability for landlords to evict without needing a reason.
As part of the End Unfair Evictions campaign we are calling for Section 21 to be scrapped, and demanded this in our response to the government’s recent consultation on longer tenancies. In our response we also set out how the private rental market should work once Section 21 is history.
A victory on tenant security, but the campaign continues
After reports in the Sunday papers, late yesterday afternoon the Ministry of Housing published its long-awaited consultation paper on “Overcoming Barriers to Longer Tenancies in the Private Rented Sector”.
It allows us a moment to celebrate the first success of the End Unfair Evictions campaign: an acceptance by the government that private tenancy law is failing England’s tenants – just as our petition passes 40,000 signatures.
Leaving the detail of the policy to one side for now, it is significantly the first time the government has considered a change to tenancy law. Up to now ministers have been talking of merely “encouraging” landlords to offer better terms – while most landlords might do this, a lot of tenants would get no benefit. We have been arguing that we need full reform and, while incentives are still an option, mandatory reform is now on the table.
Government launches secret landlord blacklist
Landlords get to ask tenants for a reference, but there’s no way we can check what a prospective landlord is like. That’s why we’ve long been calling for a central database that names and shames criminal landlords.
From today we’ve got one. But there’s a catch: only local councils can access it.
Planned shake-up of rental market complaints system
Last October, Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Communities (and now Housing) said that he wanted to start requiring landlords to join a redress scheme if they did not already use a letting agent.
The government is now consulting on plans for this. The good news is it is considering doing away with the three different schemes tenants have to navigate when they have a complaint at the moment.
Life in the rental market: what the future holds for older renters
Most debates around housing focus on young adults, the drastic fall in their rate of home ownership and ways to boost the number of first time buyers.
Far less attention, however, is given to the vast numbers of renters who are already too old to get a mortgage and face a lifetime of renting instead. As more of them reach retirement age, the state will start paying more of their rent, and faces enormous costs unless it makes some fundamental changes to the housing market. Because politicians only operate with 5-year horizons, few are fretting about the implications of lifetime renting.
But we are, and today we publish a report co-authored with David Adler of Oxford University: Life in the Rental Market.
What will George Galloway do for London’s renters?
The Respect Party candidate, George Galloway, has set out his manifesto on his home page, and we’ve updated our candidate comparison on Vote Homes. This is what he is promising London’s renters.
Caroline Pidgeon sets out housing policies
Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor, has published her manifesto. We’ve taken a look at what she’d do to fix the housing crisis and how she compares with other candidates so far.