Generation Rent activist now working for DLUHC as PRS advisor

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A former Generation Rent campaigner is now working as an advisor shaping private rented sector policy at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Caitlin Wilkinson – policy advisor for the private rented sector – was policy and public affairs manager at the campaigning group for two years and formerly responsible for developing Generation Rent’s policy proposals around safer housing.

She joined the group after volunteering on the campaign to end Section 21 evictions and previously worked at youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.

There is evidently a cross-over between the campaigning group and public office as its director Baroness Alicia Kennedy was previously a Labour peer.

Step down

However, she is due to step down from her role and Generation Rent is recruiting for her replacement which it says presents, “an exciting opportunity to lead a dynamic and committed team to radically improve the lives of Britain’s private renters at a moment of huge political opportunity”.

The successful candidate – on a £57,000 salary – will be expected to lead the organisation and strengthen its position as “a leading participant in the housing debate”. 

This winter it has been calling for stronger action from the government to raise energy efficiency standards in private rented homes, ensure grants are available for fuel poor households and supporting tenants to ask their landlords for improvements.

It has also been campaigning for a rent freeze and says that thanks to its collective action, the government has promised to scrap Section 21.

View Full Article: Generation Rent activist now working for DLUHC as PRS advisor

Tenant AWOL?

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Hi, This is my 2nd post since I joined this forum. It’s still related to the same issue where I purchased a property with sitting tenants, where I had no choice on the tenancy agreement being created by the previous landlord for 12 months despite him knowing that he was selling the following week!

View Full Article: Tenant AWOL?

BREAKING: Housing minister lasts just FOUR months after Rishi’s reshuffle move

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Landlords and the wider rented sector face more uncertainty after it was announced this morning that housing minister Lucy Frazer, who has only been in post since October last year, is to become secretary of state at the new department of Culture, Media and Sport.

In private at least, the news is unlikely to be welcomed by industry leaders as Frazer’s replacement, who is yet to be announced, will be the be the 15th housing minister since the 2010 election and the 6th in the past 12 months.

Frazer had been welcomed by leading housing organisations and figures because she is a landlord.

As we reported on her appointment to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) at the time, there were hopes the private rented sector would have a new voice within the government.

Frazer rents out a property in London and also defended the government’s decision to stand down eviction protections for residential tenants after the pandemic.

She told BBC Question Time in 2021 that tenants had been “protected for a long period of time”, adding “it is important that landlords can take control where necessary”.

Frazer is also being rewarded for her loyalty – after his successful bid to become Prime Minister, she publicly backed Sunak, tweeting: “I am confident that our principled and tremendously capable PM will lead us effectively through these economically challenging times”.

Reformer

During her brief stint at DHLUC towers she got involved in property industry reform, short-lets regulation and the looming Renters Reform Bill.

Frazer is the MP for South-East Cambridgeshire since 2015, she had a brief spell as transport minister during Liz Truss’s premiership and was previously treasury minister and a minister in the Ministry of Justice.

She has also been solicitor general and before becoming an MP was a practising barrister.

Frazer’s move coincides with major changes to Whitehall including a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which will be now overseeing the EPC upgrade deadline and its funding for landlords, headed up by Grant Shapps.

View Full Article: BREAKING: Housing minister lasts just FOUR months after Rishi’s reshuffle move

Scotland’s PBSA is ‘unfit for purpose’

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Students in Scotland are being forced to live in unsafe purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and a rent freeze should be reintroduced, a new report reveals.

The National Union of Students in Scotland (NUS) claims that students are being forced to live in unsafe

View Full Article: Scotland’s PBSA is ‘unfit for purpose’

OFFICIAL: Landlords ARE quitting rented sector says Bank of England

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The Bank of England has joined the chorus of voices highlighting the worsening problem of landlords leaving the sector.

Its findings in the latest Monetary Policy Report offer yet more proof that government tax and other policies are forcing out investors; it says demand for rental properties continues to outstrip supply as the number of landlords choosing to exit the market has increased.

It adds: “Contacts attributed this to a combination of factors including tax and regulation, higher maintenance and borrowing costs, and an inability to recoup increased costs in rents.”

Research by Savills backs this up, according to residential research analyst Sophie Tonge, who reports that an increasing number of landlords decided to exit when the sales market was particularly hot, to realise the capital growth.

“Imbalance in supply and demand has seen rents grow at a really strong pace, in Bristol they’ve grown by 11% in the past year alone,” she explains.

“More first-time buyers are staying in the PRS as there are fewer homes for sale – in the BS34 area, the number of private rental households has gone up by 48% between 2011-2019.”

Savills says this has resulted in the number of available properties to rent in Q4 2002 falling across the UK compared to 2017-2019 and was particularly noticeable in Newcastle (-64%), Cardiff (-38%) and London (-37%).

MP backs calls

Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina says that in all his years of being involved in the letting sector, he’s never seen so many landlords exiting the market.

He recently met his local MP Theresa Villiers who promised to press home the message that landlords should no longer be demonised, during parliamentary questions.

Says Paul: “Our local MPs need educating on what’s happening on the ground. My message to landlords and letting agents is yes things are tough, moaning gets you nowhere, take some action and engage with your local MP.”

Read the BoE monetary report in full.

View Full Article: OFFICIAL: Landlords ARE quitting rented sector says Bank of England

Something to keep you smiling

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When I first started Property118 I tried to post a landlord or tenant-related joke or video once a week. My Uncle reminded me about this a while back and said he really enjoyed reading our newsletters because the fun parts cheered him up.

View Full Article: Something to keep you smiling

Tenant damage – repairs via instalments?

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Hello, My tenant has damaged the panel heater in a bedroom and it is now beyond repair. The quote is just under £700 to fully replace and fit and dispose of the old one.

He has in the past been slow to pay for the call out charge when a contractor was pre-booked (twice) and he failed to be in despite agreeing to the date and time so I know its like getting blood from a stone already.

View Full Article: Tenant damage – repairs via instalments?

Accountants are on their knees

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For the last few months Accountants have been focused on filing tax returns for their clients. It’s an annual sacrifice this profession makes, trading long hours and family time for mountains of paperwork and HMRC portals.

Imagine feeling physically and mentally depleted and instead of being thanked for your hard work

View Full Article: Accountants are on their knees

‘Tories are trying to blame landlords for PRS mess of their own making’

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The Tories should take the blame for the landlord exodus and crisis-hit private rental sector, according to one leading investment guru.

Financial columnist and author Matthew Lynn says that for the last decade, the party has been in an all-out war against buy-to-let landlords, imposing extra taxes that don’t apply to any other form of commercial operation and making them responsible for everything from controlling immigration to ensuring the country hits net zero “by sometime next week”.

Writing in The Telegraph, Lynn (pictured) explains: “The UK needs a healthy, functional owner-occupied and rental sector, but we are further away from both than ever.

“In fact, the UK now faces a full-scale landlord exodus – and the dismal truth is that this is a crisis entirely of the Conservative government’s own making.”

He believes that if the Tories hadn’t imposed so many extra costs on landlords over the last decade, we wouldn’t be witnessing the numbers leaving the market.

“Nor would tenants be facing a catastrophic shortage of supply, and crippling increases in the cost of finding somewhere to live. The net result is that a sector that includes 4.9 million homes and accounts for 19% of the total housing market is now a total mess.”

Lynn adds that the Tories have not built anything like enough new homes to keep pace with the extra demand for housing that mass immigration creates.

Blame

“The Conservatives have tried to fix that by pinning the blame on buy-to-let landlords,” he says.

“And yet the crisis in the rental market is entirely of the government’s own making and has been brewing for a decade or more.

“Until we stop demonising landlords, and recognise that they are part of a functioning, mixed-ownership housing market, we won’t have any chance of fixing that.”

Data recently released by Savills shows that almost all rental markets in the UK have seen significant reductions in stock. Its data compares the final three months of last year with the 2017-2019 average, highlighting reductions varying from -21% in Edinburgh to -64% in Newcastle.

Read his column in full. 

Picture credit: Flickr/Matthew Lynn.

View Full Article: ‘Tories are trying to blame landlords for PRS mess of their own making’

Future of private rented sector will be the ’15-minute’ home say experts

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The future of new rented accommodation in the UK will be developments where all facilities including transport, shops and services including schools are all within 15 minutes of a tenant’s property, it has been claimed.

This comment was made during a webinar hosted by Savills, Bristol developer YTL Developments and local lettings firm Abode.

All three are keen to plug a huge new district being built in North Bristol on the site of the city’s former Filton airfield where all the Concords were built called Brabazon (main picture) – and say it’s the next big opportunity for buy-to-let landlords in the south west of England.

Both Jon McDiarmid, a director at YTL Developments and senior lettings manager Deborah Mitchell say more and more developments within the UK will soon be ’15-minute communities’.

Dog walking

“That means everything residents need for their daily lives whether that’s going to work or taking your children to school, walk the dog, do the shopping or have a night out will be a short walk or cycle journey away,” says McDiarmid.

Brabazon’s scale is considerable and will include a 15-acre park, a new train station, huge music venue, shopping centre and a property range that will include both apartments and houses.

It  will include some 2,700 properties to buy or rent from £800 to £2,400 pcm.

“This kind of development where everything you need is extremely attractive to tenants who don’t come from Bristol including those from overseas and who know nothing about the wider city and who often want to rent a new property,” says Mitchell.

Read more stories about Bristol.

View Full Article: Future of private rented sector will be the ’15-minute’ home say experts