Landlord lobby has sabotaged renter protection in new laws

• THE watering down of the misnamed Renters (Reform) Bill and the weakening of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill are good examples of what happens when draft legislation comes up against the multiplicity of property interests and those who seek to protect them.

Regarding the first piece of legislation, it is the private landlord lobby and what have been termed “pro-landlord” MPs in parliament who have mobilised to put pressure on the government to change the legislation.

Alex Shinder stated in his May 2 letter that “everyone is equally unhappy” and “perhaps a balance has been struck”; but as a longstanding member of the Renters’ Reform Coalition we can confirm that this is definitely not the case as we are much unhappier than the other side are because an imbalance in favour of private landlords has clearly been achieved by the bill which has seen some 200 amendments made to it.

This is why the coalition recently announced that it cannot support the legislation in its current form and will continue to seek improvements to it; but we do not hold out much hope of any of these being added.

Your readers might also be interested to know that civil servants up until very recently were keen to get our public support for the legislation, and when they were asked what parts of it they would be willing to change to secure this, we were told… none.

In terms of the second piece of legislation, it is those in the property industry who will benefit most from the continuation of leasehold (which is a long tenancy agreement allowing you to live in the property for a given period of time, but you do not actually own the bricks and mortar) and, again, their MP supporters who have been pushing back on this.

Interestingly Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Commun­ities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, described leasehold as an “outdated feudal system”, but this has not prevented him from being accused of doing a U-turn on scrapping it.

Some commentators believe that we have now moved to a “rentier” economy whereby income is increasingly derived from the ownership of assets such as land and property.

Given the examples cited above, coupled with the statistic that one in 21 of the population are now private landlords, it’s increasingly hard to disagree with this.

ROBERT TAYLOR
Camden Federation of Private Tenants, NW5