Labour’s consumer rights revolution for renters
You may have noticed news stories appearing about an announcement by Labour on rented housing.
This is the story as released by the Labour Party:
The Conservative Party’s record on housing is one of seven years of failure.
In the private rented sector, tenants are now spending £800 million every month on homes which the Government classes as ‘non-decent’. Around a quarter of this – some £2.3 billion a year – is paid by housing benefit.
Labour is today setting out a how we’ll do things differently. We will act in the interests of the many not just the few by delivering a consumer rights revolution for renters. We will improve standards, security and affordability for people who rent their homes from a private landlord.
Labour will guarantee new legal minimum standards to ensure that all homes are at least ‘fit for human habitation’, give councils new powers to license landlords, allow private tenants to report those that rent homes that are unsafe, and will introduce tough new fines of up to £100,000 for landlords who fail to meet minimum standards.
Under Labour, no one will be denied their basic consumer housing rights or help to address their concerns.
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Great rhetoric but during the Labour administration’s 1997 to 2010 they did little to address the bad standards in many rented properties. The process of registration and inspection is labour intensive. I worked in local govt during that period and there was a turf war between Housing Managers and Environmental Health Managers as to how to deal with unregistered HMO’s ( Houses in Multiple Occupation) where many of the landlords flouted Health and Safety regs, gas safety regs, electrical wiring regs. Housing didn’t want to have to fund B&B if the tenants were evicted by Environment Health taking court action.
The problem of poor housing will not go away just because someone wishes it too. It will take an enormous amount of human resources on the ground to do this and it will not happen in one 5 year parliament. If the Tories get back in of course nothing will ever get better until we have a plague or such like.
Try to remember that the Labour administration of 1997-2010 was Blairite New Labour and the current party isn’t.
You cannot equate Blair’s Labour with Corbyn’s Labour.
not before time either.,know of 2 about to be made homeless. 1 lived in same house 12 yrs. landlady now wants to do it up to sell… tenant had 6 monthly checks ,repairs not done including some from before she moved in and list growing each time checks done. this is 2nd private rent shes had where landlady decided to sell from under her. needs 1 or 2 bed house or ground floor flat. or bungalow.landlord who will take dss and pets. but shes only allowed upto 375 a month housing benefit now. they’ve been paying 385 for the 2 bed shes in at mo./ rents never been put up.vulnerable adults told her to gt rid of her pets (her babies, no kids) and move in with elderly mother in a 1 bedroom bungalow where theres already an old dog too.
so far its not looking good,. has till 8th june to get out.
other young 22yr old.pregnant. was living with boyfriend at his dads flat but dad got wed again to a woman fromabroad. shes now got visas etc and is also pregnant. she is moving in so this girl had to move out though her boyfriend still lives there.she moved back to her single dads 1 bed flat. needs a 1 or 2 bed place. but again will only get for a single person till shes had the baby.
just 2 cases from the millions trying to find a home for themselves and in some cases family.