London renters lose five months’ pay to rent – Generation Rent

A London tenant earning through the winter, the spring and into June has, on average, only just covered the year’s rent bill, Generation Rent claims.

The tenant activist group said that 2 June was London’s ‘Cost of Rent Day’.

That’s the point in the calendar when the income earned by the average private renter in the capital would have gone entirely to their landlord.

The date falls more than three weeks after the England average of 11 May, reflecting the heavier cost of renting in the capital.

Call for rent controls

The organisation’s chief executive, Ben Twomey, said: “Homes are the foundations of our lives.

“But when Londoners are forced to spend so much of their income on rent, it means children going to school hungry and older renters who can’t afford to turn the heating on.

“High rents trap people in homelessness and rip money out of local communities.”

He added: “It’s not right that London renters are handing over more than five months of their income every year to landlords.

“The government must urgently give Mayor of London Sadiq Khan the power to slam the brakes on soaring rents by limiting rent increases.”

London’s rent more expensive

According to ONS figures, renters in London spend 42% of their income on rent, compared with 36% across England.

The government’s affordability benchmark defines an affordable home as one where rent accounts for no more than 30% of income.

Generation Rent says the figures show how far the capital has moved from earlier decades.

A House of Commons Library analysis found renters in London spent around 15% of their income on rent from the 1960s to the early 1980s.

Latest ‘Cost of Rent Day’

Private renters in London are also three times more likely than owner occupiers to live in poverty, the organisation says.

The latest ‘Cost of Rent Day’ in the country falls in Kensington and Chelsea, where Generation Rent says the date lands on 26 September.

The five least affordable places to rent in the country are all London boroughs, according to the campaign group.