5 Years

Five years ago today the Renter’s Reform Bill was introduced to Parliament with a view to sorting out the utter carnage that is the United Kingdom’s rental sector. It’s primary focus was to redress the power imbalance favouring landlords that happened in 1997 when section 21 of the Housing Act became law… The infamous ‘No fault’ evection legislation brought in at the request of the banking sector so that borrowers could take out mortgages on properties that they planned to rent out, safe in the knowledge that a tenant could be thrown out within a couple of months for no other reason than ‘because’.

You can do a lot in five years, you can conceive and bring a child to the point that you could have a vaguely intelligible conversation with them, you can see a blockbuster movie from an idea on a scrap of paper, through castings, pre production, filming, editing, post-productions, soundtrack scoring, to a premier, you can create a ‘triple A’ video game, build a cruise liner and all manner of things. In the last five years I have made at least 250 artworks, knitted about forty garments, moved house, lost a mother, lost a friend, gained a great nephew, made four books and am currently finalising a fifth and, in all this time, what has happened with this parliamentary bill? Bugger all, that’s what!

It is no secret that at least a third of the ruling political party are landlords, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer down to lowly back benchers, the Tories are coining it in off the labour of others in the form of rental income, as are many of their voters; why would a turkey vote for Christmas? The Renter’s Reform Bill has met nothing but obstacles at every stage of its slow progress through Westminster and it’s been watered down at every opportunity to the point that it is hardly worth bothering with and it is now reaching the stage where a new government will come in and it will just vanish along with any other unpassed legislation.

Will the Tories mark two (What is left of the Labour Party) do anything for renters? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that they are clearly in the pay of big business and they seem to be focused on meeting the needs of the highest bidder rather than the most needy and I don’t see them being any different in this manner than any other.

Today is not a day for candles and cake, five years of poverty, fear and vulnerability is not a cause for celebration… let’s hope we aren’t in the same boat in five more.

You can buy Roof-Less my illustrated book about the housing crisis here.

The myth of the ‘nice’ buy to let.

I’ve been deeply disturbed recently by the idea that’s been put about that you can be a responsible, even nice, buy-to-let landlord and, in particular, the intention by organisations supposed to help renters, that should know better, to focus instead on the evil that is the short stay holiday let.

Whilst online , short term, lets are a blight on the housing system, they are merely taking advantage of the slowness of governments worldwide to catch on and respond with effective legislation to combat the problem. Like many online business models, online holiday lets are a loophole that needs closing up immediately.

Buy to let mortgages and those that exploit them are another matter entirely. The changes to the British banking laws that forbade them to sell mortgages to other parties than the person who would actually be living in it were an act to stimulate the financial services industry and make them richer than they were already. On top of this act of naked greed, the bankers demanded that it would be much easier to market such mortgages if the punters knew that they were free to boot out tenants whenever they felt like it. Thus was born, section 21 of the Housing Act.

The section 21 or, as it’s more commonly know, ‘no fault’ eviction allows property owners to boot out their tenants with a few months notice for no other reason than ‘because’. You complain about a leak, Out! you complain about the draughty windows, Out! you support the wrong football team, Out! If they want to jack the rent price up beyond a fare level, OUT! The renter is a sitting duck with no security at all.

If someone takes out a buy-to-let mortgage they are complicit in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent history. make no bones about is, you are, if not actively evil, then, evil adjacent. You might as well buy cheap gold teeth from a concentration camp and make yourself some jewellery.

People are dying across the country right now because of the housing crisis, through freezing to death, starvation and suicide, money can only go so far before something has to give and, eventually, it does.

Regardless of this odious legal byproduct, if you buy a property specifically to rent out, you are no better than a ticket tout or scalper as the Americans call them. You are taking a property out of the housing market that would have been bought by someone getting on the housing ladder.

The housing market is supposed to ebb and flow depending on supply and demand and when buy-to-let landlords are part of that demand, the market keeps rising and the people who would be buying their first home are now haemorrhaging their deposit money on ever increasing rents. The sick irony being that they are paying that money to those that have stopped them getting a forever home in the process.

Telling everyone that you are a ‘nice’ buy-to-let landlord is the equivalent of being an exceptionally pretty flea or handing a concert goer their 300% mark-up concert tickets in a fancy envelope.

If you think you are one of the mythical ‘good’ landlords, sell your properties at below market rate to a housing association and go reenact ‘that’ scene in indecent proposal with the cash.

Roof Less

There are times where you have to stop acting like a victim and do something positive. In January of 2020 I received news that I was to lose my home of 13 years. After the initial shock and realising just how horrendous the situation had become, I decided to do something positive about it. I documented every part of my fight to keep a roof over my head. The endless loop of housing charities, the impossibility of social housing, I spoke to ex estate agents, civil engineers, ex housing officers and numerous other people. It was exhausting, keeping this fight going through the pandemic, through a life changing diagnosis, through the death of my mother and through, landlord intimidation. Every inch and every day was a fight, from getting a decent housing officer, trying to get decent banding and being led up the garden path (not an actual one though) on numerous occasions.

I eventually found somewhere to live, through luck and a friend rather than any of the systems that were supposed to help. I could have left it there, maybe turned up at the occasional protest and waved a little flag around to feel better about things and ultimately be ignored but that isn’t my style. So instead I spent the next year taking everything I learnt about the whole history of the housing crisis. From Rowan Point to Grenfell Towers, from right to buy to buy to let, from the section 21 to the bailiff at your door and the nightmare that is trying to get a council flat to rigged minimum income floors. I researched every problem that led to the housing situation now and illustrated it all.

I’ve been in close communication with a national organisation to help fix this problem and the book is almost ready to go. I just have to update the last set of proof corrections and off I go.

I wanted to keep quiet about this until I had saved up the money for the first run but something happened today that forced my hand. So here we are, Roof-Less the housing crisis in words and pictures. Something practical to help promote real and lasting change to other people’s lives.