The deputy chief executive of Generation Rent claims to have suffered “horrendous exploitation” at the hands of lettings agents. 

Dan Wilson Craw – writing on the Left Foot Forward website – says: “Many of us who have tried finding a new place to live in the past couple of years have encountered horrendous exploitation at the hands of letting agents trying to wring every last drop of extra rent from the overheated market. Being asked to bid against other renters or offer multiple months’ rent up front is now commonplace.”

His article on the website – which describes itself as “a space for progressive ideas and values across and outside of parties” – the Generation Rent leader claims that thanks to high rents “young adults trying to start a career in a city are being turned away by landlords and letting agents and forced back to their parents’ homes, missing out on valuable opportunities at a pivotal time in their lives.”

Wilson Craw says landlords and agents can effectively name their price on rents and “threaten a Section 21 eviction” for existing tenants not wanting to pay, and he dismisses tribunal appeals because ”Section 21 trumps everything.”

He praises the nationalist government in Scotland for introducing a long-term system of rental control – now going through the Scottish Parliament – but is wary of Labour’s manifesto promises to enable tenants to challenge unreasonable rents.

He asks: “There is a huge question of what would constitute ‘unreasonable’. Surely, rent the tenant could not afford to pay, i.e. because their income had risen at a lower rate, would count – but it would be incredibly concerning if Labour’s commitment was simply to allow the existing tribunal system to step in once Section 21 goes, leaving the landlord’s ‘finger-in-the-air’ market rent as this benchmark instead.

“What would be fairer, and prevent renters needing to go through the extra bureaucracy of challenging rents, would be to place an annual limit on how much a landlord could raise the rent by, to the lower of wage growth or consumer price inflation. This would keep rents in line with affordability.”

He is also critical of Labour’s bid – just a few weeks ago – to amend the Conservative government’s ill-fated Renters Reform Bill to make landlords “advertise a single rent figure in advance and be prevented from creating or encouraging bids that exceed that price.” 

Wilson Craw writes: “It’s not by any means ‘rent control’ because ultimately landlords would set the rent when they advertise a property. And it would only tackle one symptom of the overall shortage of homes which is creating a seller’s market that invites this exploitation in the first place. But it would stamp out the worst profiteering by letting agents, and give tenants assurance that a property that looks affordable will be worth applying for.”