Activists in Generation Rent are now making a new demand - that landlords must pay the moving costs of tenants when they sell their properties.
The campaigners have long been sharply critical of landlords, and over the Bank Holiday weekend they issued new demands that there should be open-ended tenancies to “give tenants stability and flexibility” and that landlords “should pay the equivalent of two month’s rent towards tenants’ moving costs, to minimise the stress of moving.”
Generation Rent claims the average up-front cost of an unplanned move for what it calls “the median private renter household” is £1,709 including deposit, time off work to pack and move, cleaning costs, van hire and broadband installation. And this sum also includes what the campaigners call “two weeks paying rent on two properties while moving.”
It also looked at how different renters are affected. For a single parent with children, this figure is £1,451 per person; for sharers in a three-bedroom property, it’s £731 per person.
Generation Rent says that 2019-20, some 134,000 private renter households moved home after being evicted, coming to the end of a fixed term tenancy, or “being faced with a rent increase.”
The activists state that its survey of some 884 people who have rented from a private landlord in the last five years found that 56 per cent say they paid more rent when they last moved home. Alongside financial costs, 44 per cent reported having to move further away from friends or family, 15 per cent were further from a hospital, and five per cent had to move their children’s school.
Baroness Alicia Kennedy, the campaign group’s director, says: “Renters are shelling out millions to pay for house moves that they have no choice but to make. Not only is moving home expensive, it can force renters to move away from essential support networks, family and friends, and can disrupt children’s education.
“Renters deserve secure and stable homes where they can put down roots in their communities and thrive. With tenancies so short and evictions so common, this right is out of reach for millions of private renters.
“Generation Rent is calling on the government to commit to open ended tenancies in the upcoming Renters Reform White Paper, and to make landlords contribute to renters’ moving costs in the event of an unplanned and unavoidable move.”
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Alacia utter rubbish, they are not our families we have to rear our own. So you’d like 2 months would you, then 6, how about we pay their College fees or buy their drugs it would be nice.
They have the right to a Secure home who gives them that right ? you is it, if they want a Secure home it’s very simple buy your own and dictate your ideas to the lender. There are plenty of Government help 2 buy ponzi schemes available to stitch you up for rest of your life.
Un fu****g believable!! Generation Rent have campaigned incessantly for years to drive Landlords out of the PRS, And now they are not happy when Landlords exit the market. Perhaps GR should pay moving costs of tenants as they have caused the Landlord to sell up.
Linking moving costs to rental costs is like Diane Abbott wanting to cap rents at 50% of annual council tax bills - the two costs are largely unrelated (council tax in a wealthy area can be lower than in less prosperous areas and a move only marginally more expensive). This apparent economic illiteracy makes a mockery of the policies before they're even properly debated. Hard to take it seriously.
I think we should not only pay the moving costs we should actually buy them a house with a furnishing allowance, hot tub in the garden and a family sized car……I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous.
Don't forget as well, 2 holidays a year for the whole family too. They deserve it.
What if the landlord has an unplanned and unavoidable need to sell..does he get compensation.
Maybe an idea would be for tenants to be able to take out some form of insurance policy for this scenario, or would that not hurt the landlords enough? Thoughts?
I agree wholeheartedly with that suggestion. Hopefully, an insurance company will take up the reins and run with it.
it never ceases to amaze me that GR keep making demands without giving anything in return. For the PRS to work well there has to be fairness to both sides. GR never seem to consider this and just continually portray the LLs as the bad guys and the tenants as the poor victims.
Consider where all these tenants would be if we all upsticks and leave! If their demands were more reasonable they might get some traction but this pie-in-the-sky stuff just makes them too easy to dismiss so they achieve nothing.
Another cost for landlords just means higher rents for all tenants everywhere.
On second thoughts, plenty of empty homes in Kabul. Happy to pay travel expenses to there for the Baroness and her Generation Rant rabble rousers!
any more crap like this and i sell up putting people on the streets.Let this crackpot government house them !
In 30 yrs the only tenants I've evicted have been non payers, and I suspect that goes for most landlords, A non payer makes themselves homeless not the landlord.
Exactly its ridiculous I'm currently in the process of an s8 for someone who simply couldn't be bothered to send their documents in to complete their benefit claim. I got an email from the council saying they're happy to backdate everything but they need two documents from them and they haven't supplied them so totally avoidable
For me unfortunately can’t put up rent when I can’t get what I am owed and helped them so much, now gone over seas on holiday no problem far more important than rent.
I think it is time they come up with creative ideas so that we can work together. These unnecessary demands also means continua rent increase because someone will have to pay the two months rent equivalent for moving cost.
The Government, generation rent and the likes are trying get the landlords to sell up and move on to other investments. Already the likes of Lloyds bank are looking to buy a portfolio of rental properties, build to rent is increasing too. The tenants supporting this activity is like the British fisherman story of supporting Brexit and loosing their livelihood after Brexit. I would love to let them have their cake and eat it and laugh at their despair when it happens, but remember it is the future generations that will suffer the most. So it is time to have a landlord's organisation that takes on the likes of generation rent to task by taking them on in media and if need be taking court action against them for misleading the public.
"Alongside financial costs, 44 per cent reported having to move further away from friends or family, 15 per cent were further from a hospital, and five per cent had to move their children’s school."
So put another way 56% moved closer to friends, 85% moved closer to a hospital and 95% didn't have to move their children's school.
Nice bit of lateral thinking.
These hypocrites are disgusting. They want landlords to sell up and go, then complain and want paying for it when they do!! They will never be satisfied - it isn’t possible. Even if we did this, they’d demand lower or free rents, then utilities paid, then their shopping bought for them, then holidays included… their idiotic demands would never stop.
And incidentally, how would this work in terms of tenants who WANT to be evicted? Why are these cases never mentioned, especially when debating S21 etc…?
Small landlords who rent out one or two properties to supplement their pensions and provide a personal service to their tenants are a win-win in this country, yet these are exactly the people being driven out by generation rent in favour of multi-billion corporations who can do things on a scale and don't care about personal service and mutual support. You would think left-wing groups would support the small person, but it seems not.
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