Greenwich Council offer £15,000 to private landlords
Greenwich Council have announced they will pay up to £15,000 in public money to private landlords as well as the possibility of more than ten year’s guarantee of rent.
They state: “The leasing scheme provides guaranteed rent paid monthly in advance for the whole of the time that the property is leased to us, including during void periods, and agreements can initially be for two to five years, with longer leases of 10 years or more also available.”
It covers houses in multiple occupation (HMO) and self-contained flats and houses.
The move follows the council recently announcing it was pulling back from building new council homes following the much lauded Greenwich Builds scheme which saw at-scale building of new council homes for the first time in decades, as well as selling public land that could provide low cost housing.
Proposed housing on public sites also includes minimal new social homes. The housing component behind the forthcoming Woolwich leisure centre sees just 24 additional council homes out of 482 with 27 existing council homes replaced in addition. Combined it’s just above ten per cent of the total. When factoring net new social homes it totals just five per cent of the overall amount.
The authority argue paying private landlords will reduce reliance on expensive hotels, and while that’s not in doubt, it’s far from without issues.
For one, a drive by a council to hoover up private rentals will have a clear impact on existing availability for private renters. Reduced supply will further push up rents – by some estimates already rising at three times inflation – putting more at risk of homelessness.
It’s also a big incentive for landlords to buy up further homes pricing out first time buyers.
Help or hurt?
Like so many policies to “help” it could in time harm almost as many as it assists – ultimately solving little long term.
It’s yet more public money to private interests. An aversion to public housebuilding appears to continue under this government and so in time ever more billions will flow to private landlords.
Government have thus far failed to substantially increase funding to anywhere close to levels estimated as required for 90k low cost homes a year, with little funding to rapidly increase building on public land such as TfL sites across the capital.
London Councils are currently paying £1.4 billion a year to provide for homeless households. Even when the cost shifts to central government as policies like this hope to achieve it simply adds to an annual and growing £30 billion housing benefit bill with a rise to £35bn expected by 2028.
Before current orthodoxy took hold under both Labour and the Conservatives, 95 per cent of the housing budget in 1976 went towards constructing new low cost homes compared to just 12% in 2022 as ever more now heads to private landlords. As a whole, the UK spends more than it did to provide far fewer social and low cost homes. The number of private renters and associated costs spiralled.
Meanwhile the country’s deficit balloons.
Of course compared to the very worst options it can be argued it’s better, and in the short term that may make sense, but without a long term commitment to build new low cost homes at scale (and so far there’s no guarantee from this government they will do so) private landlords simply reap the benefits ever more at the expense of taxpayers.
If you’re a landlord, fill your boots. If you’re a taxpayer expect ever more money to head to private interests and if a private renter, you may see your already slim choices reduce yet further.
We live in a country where almost every public asset is flogged off to rinse the general population e.g. water, electricity, gas via higher costs and tax so why would council and social housing for those not wealthy enough to buy be any different? A wholesale transfer of public wealth to the private rented landlord class.
No difference between Labour and Tory on this basic stance heading back decades now and scant change of anything changing soon.
We live in a country where almost every public asset is flogged off to rinse the general population e.g. water, electricity, gas via higher costs and tax so why would council and social housing for those not wealthy enough to buy be any different? A wholesale transfer of public wealth to the private rented landlord class.
No difference between Labour and Tory on this basic stance heading back decades now and scant change of anything changing soon.
As the great Leonard Cohen said:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Buy them!
At vastly inflated current prices? Which in turn often sees private renters evicted and available private rental choice reduce with the same problem of pushing up rents and placing more people at risk of homelessness?
Much better to build new social/council homes on public land – which also provides employment and supports a battered construction industry currently seeing major job losses.
We don’t need more housing in the area. It would be better if they stopped offshore investors etc buying up properties and leaving them vacant. Greenwich Borough and the surrounding areas have not only become horribly ovecrowded with people but building works have been going on constantly for years, often destroying natural environments. How can it be justified that beautiful places like Tidemill Gardens (which were so good for our mental and physical health) could be destroyed to build homes, when there are so many properties already sitting around empty. Enough already.
You may not need new housing. Plenty of people do. The number of vacant homes is far below need as statistics show.
Most landlords that I dealt with as an agent for many years had bought an extra property or two and worked very hard to service and sustain them, often not making a profit and often subsidising them occasionally loosing a lot some years if encountering bad tenants.
One encouraged to help refugees offered his flat to the council, the triggers were very grateful at commencement, and he made a very small profit, until after 3;years they gained a right to reside and their claim changed to a housing benefit application that they needed to apply for. They were seemingly uninterested in taking any time off to make an application, refused to cooperate and informed us the council had advised them there the landlord can’t make them do anything, they had been advised he wouldn’t be able to evict them for many many months and then if they didn’t move out he would need bayliffs, at which point they would then be regarded as emergency homeless and would then be offered a cheaper flat directly with the council without having to wait years !!! So that’s what they did
Thanks for that information. The council implicit in the tenant not paying the rent and gaining access to the council housing waiting list no doubt as a high need/ priority case and in front of indigenous British people.
This just makes me sad. Just seems there is no such thing as shame any longer in UK.
I recall seeing a documentary on a day in the life of Greenwich Council from the 1970s era (guessing). Someone required a 4-bed council home for a few months. But they would give it back as soon as they got themselves set. There was implicit understanding. And so there was availability.
It was a system built on trust, and the populations’ willingness to ‘do the right thing’ and of being a good citizen.
But that system doesn’t work for the population any more. There is no sense of doing the right thing. Or shame in not being able to look after yourself. It’s a smash-and-grab and take (and keep) what you can get.
I 100% understand that other countries in the world do not share the same values of the UK. And I think the world is a richer place for it. But why do we leave ourselves wide open? Still trying to operate under the same rules from the last Century? We need to tighten up, and stop being gamed.
This proposal by Greenwich council is about to make everything so much worse for private sector renters. Landlords will be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of getting £15,000 and will start issuing termination notices to existing tenants. Renters in Greenwich as a whole are going to be forced out of the borough as there will be nowhere left for them.
All MPS have 2nd homes in London you never see them stepping up and offering their homes do you plus these are all on tax payers money too
I’m a landlord, this is great great news.
Labour truly now are the party of private utilities and private landlords.
Now, let me just pay my vastly increased Thames Water bill while trying to make next month’s rent.
Labour can happily disappear from the world for all I care. they have no connection to what they stood for in the past.