Activists in Generation Rent have repeated once again their call for a rent freeze and yet another eviction ban.
“Rents have been surging since offices and universities opened back up last year, and more people moved back to cities than there were homes available. Now landlords are trying to raise rent on existing tenants knowing that if they can't afford it, it won't be hard to find a new tenant” says Dan Wilson Craw, the group’s deputy director.
“This is unsustainable, particularly for the 39 per cent of private renters who rely on Local Housing Allowance which has been frozen. With rising food and energy prices, renters will get ill, go hungry and fall into arrears, risking eviction and homelessness.
“To avoid this catastrophe, we need a freeze on rents and a pause on evictions for the duration of this emergency, and an increase in Local Housing Allowance.”
Wilson Craw was responding the official figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that - contrary to data from Zoopla and others pointing to double-digit rental inflation in the past year - the typical private sector rent rose only 2.7 per cent in the 12 months to April.
Meanwhile new government figures reveal that 18,626 eviction claims were made to court by landlords between January and March 2022, up by 32 per cent on the previous quarter; of these, 5,890 were Section 21 claims, which were up by 63 per cent on the previous quarter and 41% per centhigher than the same period in 2020.
Claims for eviction for other reasons by private landlords also increased, totalling 6,316 claims in the first quarter of 2022 – up by 11 per cent on the same period in 2020.
Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.
.jpg)
.png)
Join the conversation
Wonder what salary he’s on
Six figure, you can be sure of that
Dan, aren’t you the handy man with your Associated Activists causing Tenants so much damage, misery, stress, inconvenient and financial hardship, shame on you.
The figures shows the group managed to increase Eviction Claims by 63% in a quarter. up 41% from same quarter in 2020, this all due solely to you group pushing for the Removal of Section 21. How can your Group of Associates hate Tenants so much causing them so much pain and unnecessary financial pressure. I think it’s disgusting that the Government lets you get away with this adverse Tenant campaign.
BBC wales news website is reporting that in the Merthyr area a lot more landlords are selling up than normal, exarcabating the rental housing shortage. Obviously the nearly 900k immigrants last year have nothing to do with it.
Im evicting because of all of this madness!
Especially in the student market how many of us did much shorter or cheaper tenancies for the current academic year because if Covid uncertainty? These tenancies will be skewing the data. The last academic year that should be used for rental comparison purposes is 2018 - 2019.
Rents that include utilities are also skewing data. How much of that rent is rent and how much is utilities? This time last year I had electric deals at 12.5p per kWh (now 28.4p) and 9.5p daily standing charge (now 52p).
He's right that LHA needs to be unfrozen. It was set far too low in the first place and must have included social housing rents to get the 30th percentile figure as low as it was. A few weeks ago in this 500 square mile LHA area there were a total of 6 rental properties available on Rightmove for LHA level rent. Here the choice is pretty much pay £200 a month more than LHA and live close to work or pay £50 more than LHA and either be unemployed or spend a fortune in petrol or bus fares to get to work.
Very brave of you to include utilities Jo. My agent was pushing this quite strongly a few years ago as he said that students preferred it. I resisted and instead refurbished to a high standard which meant they've always rented no problems. Very glad now!
Grumpy Doug
How does this work with your students? I currently include utilities up to a threshold that has not been exceeded, but I think this year it will be, so for the following year I might lower the rent but charge for utilities. Do you send them the bill on a monthly basis?
Hi Alison, I've never included utilities. The houses are let to the group on an AST, usually fixed 11 months. Quite simple really, I read all meters on day 1 when they arrive, send the readings over to the utility companies together with all their names, and they then deal with payments during the contract. We close the accounts at end of contract, I take responsibility for my void period (August) and them start again at start of September
If you want to set the rent, buy a house. Otherwise keep quiet
How about a freeze on interest rates, government interference, and stupid idea’s by Generation rent and the other crack pot organizations,.
Please login to comment