Councils crackdown on private landlords while failing tenants
1 year ago | 2 comments
Tenants lose fight as council can evict families to house homeless
10:14 AM, 25th June 2025, 10 months ago
64
Tenants have lost a legal challenge against a Labour-run council after they were served eviction notices to make way for homeless families.
Earlier this year, Lambeth Council decided to reclaim over 160 homes on council estates. These properties, previously rented out through the private rented sector by Homes for Lambeth, a private company wholly owned by the council, were reclassified as temporary accommodation.
As a result of the council’s actions, more than 160 families have been served Section 21 eviction notices, with residents warning this could leave them homeless despite the council’s duty to prevent homelessness.
We need to use these properties
One of the tenants applied for a Judicial Review following the council’s decision to evict private renters. However, this was refused in March, and last week a judge dismissed their appeal.
Mr Justice Linden ruled that the council had acted lawfully throughout.
Councillor Danny Adilypour, Lambeth council’s deputy leader (Housing, Investment and New Homes), welcomed the decision.
He said: “Lambeth is on the front line of a national housing crisis, and we are doing everything we can to provide the most disadvantaged and vulnerable families in Lambeth with a safe, decent home.
“It is right that we are taking back former council homes that were lost through Right to Buy. We need to use these properties to provide safe, secure homes for our most vulnerable residents in urgent need of housing, rather than leaving them to be rented on the private market to those who have the means and resources to pay market rent.”
He adds: “The number of homeless households supported by the council has increased by 50% in the last two years, and Lambeth is now providing temporary accommodation for over 4,700 homeless households every night.
“The cost of housing homeless families in overnight accommodation has risen to more than £100million a year. This is why we have to use all of the properties available to us to support these homeless households and bring these costs down.”
Making people homeless to house the homeless
The Homes for Lambeth Tenants (HFL) group warns tenants threatened with homelessness due to the decision could be forced to rely on Lambeth Council for support.
Former local Green Party councillor Peter Elliot told the Big Issue: “The fact that Lambeth Council is evicting its people from its own homes is just mind-blowing for me.
“Many people have left so what’s left for Lambeth Council is really people who can’t go anywhere. They genuinely are making people homeless to house the homeless.”
Homes for Lambeth also points out that it is the council’s legal duty to prevent homelessness.
In a statement on Instagram, HFL tenants said: “Most of HFL tenants, who are currently being served eviction notices by a ‘private company’ set up and fully owned by Lambeth Council, will have a duty to be housed by the very same council.
“The technical ruling on whether the council should have rented homes ‘privately’ in the first place does not mean that the council’s decisions are fair or ethical. Merely because something is deemed to be legal does not automatically make it just.”
The group adds that they will continue to fight for justice after the ruling.
The group says on their social media page: “The judge did not find in our favour. Still, we remain committed to fighting for each of our tenants and ensuring that we are not made homeless.
“We recognise that we should have never been put in this situation, especially by a local authority whose legal duty it is to prevent homelessness, yet here we are. And we are determined to persevere.”
Tags:
Eviction, homeless families, Homes for Lambeth Tenants, housing crisis, judicial review, lambeth council, right to buy, Section 21 eviction notices, temporary accommodation, tenants
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Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 508
4:11 PM, 28th June 2025, About 10 months ago
Worse than bonkers but it’s Lambeth!!
Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 1190
4:48 PM, 28th June 2025, About 10 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Blodwyn at 28/06/2025 – 16:11
No it’s not bonkers at all, it’s about housing the dinghy people. It’s so blindingly obvious but nobody on here wants to join the dots and believe it.
Member Since May 2015 - Comments: 2188 - Articles: 2
5:20 PM, 28th June 2025, About 10 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/06/2025 – 16:48
I have joined all the dots bar the last two so that there is an escape hole.
Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 508
7:11 PM, 28th June 2025, About 10 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/06/2025 – 16:48OK, not bonkers, bonkerissimus? Just moving the bodies as they increase around the same board? Doubtless creating new queues for the same property. Lambeth has always had its own logic code.
Member Since July 2013 - Comments: 193
10:20 PM, 28th June 2025, About 10 months ago
Probably to house illegal immigrants and save money on hotels. Who makes this stuff up?
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 1999
10:24 AM, 30th June 2025, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 28/06/2025 – 11:30
Being a trade union general secretary or being employed by a trade union is not necessarily a bad career option from a financial point of view:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a759e1440f0b67b3d5c7e3c/Appendix_5_Cert_Off_Ann_Rep_2016-2017.pdf
Of course, when it comes to something for nothing in the housing market, it’s not the ‘best deal in town’. The best deal in town is being given a 30% discount to buy your home because you’re a council tenant.
But then of course when you get to be a minister there are other opportunities to earn money on the side.
So the trade union thing is just a career option. In the last budget the winners were the public sector workers (about 10% of the economy). The losers were the private sector workers – 60% of employment in the economy is in small business. These were the biggest losers.
Biggest winners were the train drivers who got £70K per annum for a 4 day week without having to agree to any increases in productivity.
Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 508
10:51 AM, 30th June 2025, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 30/06/2025 – 10:24
Perhaps it’s a little difficult to ‘increase productivity as a train driver unless you drive your stopping train to Brighton at 90mph between 5 minutes’ stops, not about 40-50?
Which may also explain the underlying total folly that is HS2? Just upgrade the existing rolling stock and look after the track properly with one overlord not a scrum of them, kick a few backsides and, bingo, who needs HS2?
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 1999
11:10 AM, 30th June 2025, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Blodwyn at 30/06/2025 – 10:51
I think the question mark about train drivers is about embracing innovation. If you went back 60-70 years being a train driver driving steam trains was a very highly skilled job. It changed a lot when diesels came in and even more when electric became widely available.
If I remember correctly the Victoria metro line may have been one of the first fully automated metro lines in the world, if not the first. Ultra high speed trains in both Japan and China are now automated and the people involved in the train service are effectively now in a customer service role. We already have a lot of automation in our airlines and we do it because it eliminates many of the hazards caused by ‘the human error factor’.
Keir Starmer made a big thing about the UK embracing Artificial Intellligence in the last few months. Which begs the question: “Mr. Starmer, when will Artificial Intelligence be driving our trains?”
Small business is about 60% of employment in the UK. It accounted for most of the growth in employment after the last financial crash, and it’s obvious why that is…you don’t need to be an economist to understand this…primary school mathematics will suffice.
Whenever governments like the SNP or labour attack small business as they have just done to pay for a small minority of highly paid public sector workers with exceptionally generous defined benefit pension schemes (like Keir Starmer’s own pension) then they attack the GB economy.
And when conservative, labour or the SNP attack small portfolio landlords to raise taxes they are in effect mounting an attack on tenants. They are just either too dishonest or too incompetent to admit it.
Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 508
11:35 AM, 30th June 2025, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 30/06/2025 – 11:10
Is it whatever passed then for AI driving the DLR? It’s great fun sitting in the front seat of a DLR train.
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 1999
11:42 AM, 30th June 2025, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Blodwyn at 30/06/2025 – 11:35
I don’t know. I wouldn’t want a tesla car or tesla domestic battery (or anything that was in any way connect with Elon Musk) but if Tesla can produce a driverless car, or send a rocket into space, bring it back and capture it, then AI can drive a train or tram. Trains and trams are NOT new technology. The missing bit is adoption of AI to drive them. There’s been automation on metro lines for decades and these things already exist elsewhere in the world, including in socialist and communist countries, and in countries with a ‘collective’ mentality or culture.
You could probably use AI to drive a rental property incorporating photovoltaics, domestic battery and heat recovery ventilation as well. But there’s no incentive in the tax system to do that unless you are a large incorporated landlord. Small portfolio landlords are penalised in the UK.