Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Almost no-one escapes unscathed from London’s private renting market in north London, survey finds
"I have so many bad rental stories. In one case, an agency told us their £300 fees would include 'everything'. Then, the landlord decided to slap on another charge for drawing up the contract - one copied and pasted from the Internet. There was nothing we could do without giving up the flat at short notice and becoming homeless." This is the experience of Ronald Stewart, Green Party candidate in the recent by-election in St. Ann’s.
Ronald Stewart, Anne Clark and Jarelle Francis (right to left), Haringey Green Party prospective candidates for 2018 Council elections
Nine out of ten renters had experienced four or more serious problems during their time renting in London.
Another one of them is Anne Clark, one of a team Haringey Green Party members getting ready to contest the local elections in 2018:
"As a private renter in London, I've lived in houses that have literally been falling apart, where the landlord has invested nothing in maintenance, but still tried to put the rent up every year. On one occasion, the boiler broke in the middle of winter, and there was no hot water or heating in the house for nearly three weeks, but we were offered no help or compensation.
“London needs a housing policy that puts renters first and holds dodgy landlords and letting agencies to account."
London Assembly Member Sian Berry has launched a report “What are London renters thinking?” based on the results of her recent Big Renters Survey of London’s private tenants.[i]
The report lays bare the scale of dissatisfaction among London’s renters, over a range of areas including rocketing rent costs, incomplete repairs, lost deposits and fear of losing their homes at the end of each annual contract. It also reveals the appetite for an independent renter’s organisation to investigate bad landlords, provide a voice for renters and campaign for better standards.
Across the north London boroughs of Barnet, Enfield, Hackney, Camden, Islington and Waltham Forest, renters spent on average 44 per cent of their entire take-home pay on covering their rent. Fifty-three per cent of Enfield and Haringey renters reported that they had problems with landlords coming into their homes without permission. This was the highest percentage in London, compared with a London-wide average of 43 per cent.
Significantly, nearly six out of ten renters said they would be prepared to pay a small fee to join a London-wide organisation that helped them in these ways.
Sian said:
“As a renter in London for nearly 20 years, it’s important to me that I keep bringing the voices of London’s 2.3 million private renters into City Hall. In this report I’m recommending that the Mayor stands up for London’s private renters and support them in standing up for themselves.
“The willingness of renters to pay a small fee to join a renters’ organisation is very significant, as it means such a group could become self-sustaining once it has been set up. The Mayor should look seriously at providing practical help such as office space and seed funding to help found an independent London-wide organisation to represent renters in our city.”
Among other recommendations, Sian’s report suggests more support at the London-wide level for renters, including a central information source with links to existing renter’s groups and council schemes. In addition to this, Sian calls for continued pressure from the Mayor to push the government to devolve more powers over housing to London.[ii]
Sixty-eight per cent of the 1,530 renters who filled in the survey also wrote in additional information, telling Sian about their experiences in London.[iii]
A copy of the report is available here: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sian_berry_renter_sur...
An interactive map of results by GLA constituency area is here: http://www.sianberry.london/big-renters-survey/results/
[i] Sian launched the Big Renters Survey in July: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/sian-berry/launch...
[ii] The full recommendations of the report are:
1. Better engagement with renters
Including seed funding a London-wide organisation to carry out research and investigations and provide a voice for renters in dealings with City Hall and councils
2. More help and information for renters
Provided by the GLA, with a central information source and links to existing groups and council schemes.
3. Better regulation and support for landlords
With support at the London level to ensure consistent council enforcement, training and licensing
4. Enhanced regulation of the sector nationally
With continued pressure from the Mayor, Assembly and London’s borough councils for powers to be devolved to London
[iii] Sixteen case studies are quoted in the report.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Antoinette on
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There is a huge difference between paying to rent something from someone who owns it (that is a fair exchange) and paying off a mortgage on something you don't own and never would if I didn't pay your mortgage for you. Buy to let is plainly immoral in my view. You aren't contributing anything other than the ability to raise credit. I consider it old fashioned profiteering. And I'll leave it at that because you'll never agree with that position and I'll never agree with yours.
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I guess because the person who buys to let does so at the potential expense of someone who wanted to buy to occupy? When we were looking to buy, we went to several 'open days' where there were people who were buying to renovate/sell on at profit, who could pay cash and so there was no chance of even getting a look in. People who can get buy to let mortgages must have some kind of capital behind them, presumably a property they live in, so they are adding to their own empire at the expense of the humble single-home-owner.
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Spot on, Charlotte.
Penny Anderson of the Guardian explains it more eloquently than I ever could:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/04/buy-to-let-ho...
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Permalink Reply by Ian on
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That article by the guardian is cheap nonsense journalism. I guess it is in print so it must be true.
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Potential expense: you have a house that you have bought (whether mortgaged or not) and that you live in. You then decide to buy another property as an investment so that you can let it. The other people who wanted to buy that property could potentially have been people who wanted to buy it in order to live in it. You having bought it to rent it out means that your investment comes at the cost of someone else's home. As there is a fairly finite number of houses, and we are in a housing crisis, the more properties that are bought as buy to let means the fewer properties there are for people to buy as their own home.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Local authority rent payments are ring fenced to the Housing Revenue Account and can only be used for improving and maintaining housing property and land. Also, at the end of the tenancy the property is again available to rent.
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Even when it's outsourced to private providers? There have been a few scandalous stories about the LA housing provisions in East London that have been outsourced (i.e. no maintenance ever being done).
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Don't know the position with ALMOs Charlotte. The experience you cite may be behind why moving to an ALMO been rejected by tenants in a number of authorities
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Arms Length Management Organisations aka ALMOs (which I think is what you are referring to) are not-for-profit organisations that take over the management of Council property so they're not exactly "private providers". Tenants (I'm told) prefer ALMOs to dealing direct with the Council. They have representation in the form of tenant committees etc. But some ALMOs are run better than others. In Kensington, they brought in an ALMO only to take it back in-house when it didn't all run smoothly.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Let's just start with your first sentence: "The balance of power is not with a landlord and both sides have powers under the law and the tenancy agreement". When were you last a tenant Ian? Perhaps your point of view is taken from a couple of bad experiences but I will say that the high returns available to rentiers like yourself obviously come with risk. If you want safe and hassle free income I'm afraid you'll have to accept lower returns, equities perhaps?
"A person takes out a mortgage of £300,000 to buy a flat for renting" - not just any person. One that is already wealthy for sure.
"The mortgage needs to be covered and break even at least or maybe make some profit." - where is this written? When I rented as a young man in New Zealand it was cheaper than a mortgage would have been. As a landlord your capital returns in London will far exceed your rental income. A house in Harringay can go up £100,000 in a year but only return £30,000 in rental income. Anyway, world's smallest violin here just for you.
"If I want to sell up I should be able to without having to wait 5 years." - again, where is this written? House are not liquid assets that you can flick around like cash. They even have people living in them sometimes.
"There is a market for everything. A market for people on very low money who may even want to share a room in a house with their friend. should we legislate that landlords cannot permit room sharing. No rent control for micro business, market forces will prevail. Just like car manufacturers sell their cars at whatever price they deem depending on the build and quality. market forces." - You could be an MP.
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Interestingly, I think I've found out why we have these letting fees now and what they're for, more here.
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I don't understand why there was confusion as to the fees in the first place. Estate agents wouldn't go into the rental market if they weren't going to make money out of it. So they charge a fee for marketing/finding tenants, and fees for completing the paperwork. They do have to pay employees to take photos, market the property, and then process the paperwork. I'm not defending them, I'm just saying that everyone charges fees to do things. Solicitors charge their clients a fortune to process house sale paperwork for example.
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