Generation Rent

New Campaign Campaigns

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  Sadiq Khan– Ban Hostmaker ads on TFL

  Short term lets are spreading across London, taking homes away from local renters, preventing people from living in the communities where they grew up, and pushing up rents. Hostmaker’s distasteful tube ad is undermining the Mayor of London’s plans to make housing affordable in London, by encouraging landlords to kick out their tenants to create holiday homes. We want the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to ban Hostmaker ads from all Transport For London spaces Every day millions of people see these ads. Our Mayor-run transport infrastructure should be promoting organisations like Generation Rent and local renter unions, who are working to fix the housing crisis, rather than companies like Hostmaker who are actively making things worse.

  8,448 of 9,000 Signatures

  Created by Generation Rent
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  Homes not Hotels! Demand mandatory data sharing by short term lets companies

  It's been revealed that 1 in 50 homes in London are now holiday lets, meaning families and those working in the capital are being forced out of their homes and facing higher rents. Right now, if a home in London is rented out on the holiday let market for more than 90 days in the course of a year then the landlord is required to apply for planning permission to let it out to tourists. However, because there are loads of holiday let companies out there, landlords can bounce from Airbnb to HomeStay to Hostmaker and to FlipKey without regulation. Cash-strapped local councils don't have the staff or the data to track down landlords that are breaking the law. The rise of holiday lets is growing throughout England, and councils outside London have even fewer powers to do anything about it. The massive rise in companies like Airbnb and HomeStay means more evictions for long term tenants, less secure private rented housing available for Londoners and rents are being pushed up.

  3,911 of 4,000 Signatures

  Created by Generation Rent
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  Stop landlords making families homeless

  Increasing numbers of us have no option but to rent from a private landlord. That shouldn’t stop us having a place we can call home. Landlords have the legal right to evict tenants with only two months’ warning and without giving a reason. Not all landlords exercise that right, but a family has no idea if their landlord will until they get the eviction notice – and there is nothing they can do about it. They might have been living in their home for twenty or more years, like Helen and Jason, a teacher and gardener who live with their two teenage daughters as valued members of their south London community. They have paid rent to their landlord for all that time and now face a no-fault eviction with no prospect of any security in the place they move to. This imbalance of power is severely disrupting the lives of thousands of families and playing havoc with the education of increasing numbers of children. It’s time the law started protecting tenants from the whims of unscrupulous landlords. Sometimes landlords need to take back their property, either to carry out refurbishment, or to sell it if they are unable to keep their business viable. In such cases, the landlord should be required to help rehouse the tenant, including a longer period of notice than two months. But landlords don’t even need to use the eviction process to force tenants to move. They can just raise the rent to an exorbitant level. The government needs to protect tenants from this as well, and should therefore bar landlords from raising the rent by more than inflation. There are 11 million private renters in England – and counting. None of them should have the rug pulled from under them.

  1,316 of 2,000 Signatures

  Created by Dan Wilson Craw
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  Support Selective Licensing in South Manchester

  This is important because South Manchester has one of the largest private renter populations in the whole of Greater Manchester. The impact of the explosive growth of renting on communities in South Manchester is largely negative, with dangerous properties being let out by absent landlords and unscrupulous letting agents, mostly targeting young professionals and students. The result of South Manchester's unregulated private rented sector, on a human level, is increased anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping, and reduction of families and long term residents living in the area. While landlords make millions in rental profits the impact on communities is devastating. Introducing a selective licensing scheme will: -Protect tenants, and communities from predatory landlords. -Improve enforcement against bad landlords – on homes in disrepair, pest infestations, overcrowding and illegal HMOs. -Bar landlords with criminal convictions or a history of poor property management. -Introduce requirements on gas, electrical and fire safety. -Provide a true picture of renting in South Manchester. Licensing WILL NOT increase rents, the licence fee is tiny.

  7 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Pollyanna Steiner