The government is to cut the notice period landlords have to give tenants before evicting them, rolling back some of the protections it introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Councils and tenants unions have warned of a possible surge in homelessness over the summer, with a ban on bailiff-enforced evictions also set to end this month. Ministers said the changes, which will see a gradual return to the previous weaker tenants' rights, would give.
Justifying the bill, the British government claims that as a result of Extinction Rebellion’s 2019 protests “some of London’s busiest areas were brought to a standstill for several days” and cost the police £37 million. It also cited the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests where it claimed “172 Metropolitan Police Service officers were assaulted by a violent minority”.
The Kill the Bill Coalition was launched at the end of March, and released a statement saying the bill “is a dangerous and unnecessary piece of legislation that endangers the rights and safety of every single one of us … We stand united and reject attempts to divide our movement into “good” and “bad” protestors.”
Letting agents slammed for snooping on tenants’ bank accounts
Agencies have asked to see highly sensitive financial data
Letting agents want to scour their customers bank accounts
Letting agents have been criticised for demanding customers hand over access to their entire financial history before agreeing to let properties.
Campaigners have slammed the private rental market as the “Wild West” after agents used so-called Open Banking technology to snoop on tenants transaction data. Letting agents could use referencing systems to discriminate against low income renters as regulation tightens, tenant groups have warned.
Anya Martin, of PricedOut, an affordable housing campaign group, was asked to provide her transaction history via Open Banking when she applied for a tenancy in Southwark, south London. “I felt uncomfortable and I was suspicious, but I had to do it to get the tenancy,” she said.
Felix was given 28 days notice to leave halls, and has struggled to devote adequate time to studies while navigation the eviction and appeals process. As a key QMUL Rent Strike organiser, they’ve also spent time helping other evicted students.
A statement from QMUL Rent Strike adds that students have been given insufficient support following their eviction, waiting weeks for help with applying to COVID hardship funds, and in some cases being made homeless. The statement also notes that QMUL evicted a disproportionate number of students (111) between 2017 and 2019, when compared with other London universities.
“Only very occasionally do we have such significant issues with a resident that we have to issue a Notice to Quit,” a spokesperson for the university tells Dazed. “However, when students endanger their own lives, and the lives of others, for example by disabling fire safety equipment or repeatedly breaching coronavirus regulations, we have no option but to request that