Rent Control for a Living Rent
Guest post by Jon B Rents in the private rented housing market are becoming extortionate, with many tenants falling into 'rent poverty'. The Government's response is making the situation worse.…
Students' union letting agencies – Part of the Solution?
After two long years, the project that has dominated most of my Vice Presidency of Queen's University Belfast Students' Union has come to fruition – the creation of 'SU Lets',…
Can You Trust Your Landlord With Your Personal Details?
If you live in rented housing, then there's a chance that your personal details are being stored and shared without your knowledge. It has recently emerged that landlords have been…
A call for a Tenants' Movement
Housing is one of the defining issues of our generation. Not only have sub-prime mortgages triggered a financial crisis that has led to high unemployment and austerity measures, but it's…
Occupy Belfast create ‘The People’s Bank’
Royal Avenue, Belfast’s main city centre thoroughfare, mixes classic architecture with more obviously new arrivals. On the corner of Royal Avenue and North Street lies a grand, art deco building…
A very British problem, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love renting
Norwich City Councillor Samir Jeraj responds to Alyson MacDonald's The Case Against Landlords. In the 2006 film Thank You For Smoking, the anti-hero lobbyist for the tobacco industry muses about…
The case against landlords
Let's face it: nobody wants to live in private sector rented accommodation. This is the type of housing which provides the least secure forms of tenure, and where the worst…
Housing Benefit Age Discrimination
Did you know that if you are under 25 and single the government does not treat you as a fully grown adult when it comes to housing benefit? This scandal is…
National Buy2Let Mortgage
We’ve all heard the Conservative/Lib-Dem analogy about thenation’s credit card. The coalition partners in Westminster love to accuse Labour of having built up the national debt as though they were…
On immigration
It is very tempting for the liberal left to scream "racist" every time the subject of immigration comes up. But if we do so without understanding the material problems for…