Bristol councillors set to back rent controls and local database of rogue landlords
Photo by Andrew Tryon, via CC license
Bristol City Council is set to formally back introducing rent controls alongside a raft of other measures to reform the private rented sector in the city, including a rogue landlord database and exploring how to prevent ‘bidding wars’ by tenants.
As things stand, Bristol doesn’t have legal powers to introduce rent controls in response to the affordability crisis.
But the city’s Living Rent Commission, set up to explore the feasibility of rent controls, will soon present its findings. The council will then present its findings to the UK government and ask for new powers to cap rents in the city.
Although this is unlikely under the current government, Bristol’s housing chief said Labour’s pledge to devolve powers to local communities if elected could open up a “clear path” for rent controls.
The motion on private renting will be voted on by councillors at a full council meeting on Tuesday 10 January, after the joint motion was brought by Labour’s cabinet member for housing Tom Renhard and seconded by the Greens.
The Cable highlighted the success of a rogue landlord database in London, and actions in the motion now include reviewing enforcement policy and maintaining a public database of enforcement against rogue landlords in Bristol if the government’s proposed landlord portal doesn’t materialise.
Councillor Tom Hathway
For years, the Cable has reported on Bristol’s broken rental market, with renters looking for properties for many months, struggling to afford skyrocketing rents and being forced out of the city,
Most recently, an analysis of all Rightmove listings in 2022 found that the average rent for a two-bed property rose by 13.4% in a year alone, between December 2022 and December 2021. This is on top of rents increasing by half in the last decade.
With Bristol about to ask the government for extra powers to bring in rent controls, the Cable recently investigated what can be learned from the French city of Lille, where they have been in place for more than two years. Our research with French newspaper Mediacités found that many landlords were ignoring the rules and very few tenants were reporting breaches, because of a lack of enforcement and awareness of the system.
Green councillor Tom Hathway, who is bringing the joint motion with Tom Renhard, told the Cable: “The national shift from social housing to private rented over the last 40 years has seen houses turned from homes into investment vehicles. Deregulation has left tenants with little protection, and with the economic chaos the government have unleashed, already over-inflated rents in Bristol are shooting up further and pushing people into poverty.
“This joint motion builds on the ongoing work of the council’s Living Rent Commission and includes actions we can take today to engage and protect Bristol’s 130,000+ renters, whilst we wait for the government to catch up and devolve the rent control powers we urgently need.”
Rogue landlord database
As well as lobbying the government for powers to bring in rent controls, the motion says the council should also publish an annual ‘living rent index’ of what affordable rents would be and maintain a public list of enforcement notices against landlords if no such national database materialises following the Renters Reform Bill.
These long-promised reforms, including banning no-fault section 21 evictions, are expected this year. Research published this week by the magazine Inside Housing revealed that nationally, well over 50,000 households have been faced with homelessness as a result of a section 21 notice since the government announced plans to scrap them in 2019.
The inclusion of the rogue landlord database in the motion comes after the Cable reported on the idea last year. Such a database already exists in London, and our reporting prompted both Green councillors and Tom Renhard to consider if something similar could work in Bristol.
Councillor Hathway said: “The Cable highlighted the success of a rogue landlord database in London, and actions in the motion now include reviewing enforcement policy and maintaining a public database of enforcement against rogue landlords in Bristol if the government’s proposed landlord portal doesn’t materialise.”
Other interventions
The motion also says the council should instruct officers to find ways to end the practice of ‘bidding wars’, which this week has become the target of a new campaign by community union ACORN. Before Christmas, the campaign launched with a march on letting agencies that undertake the practice.
The Cable previously spoke to one renter who said it was totally normal to bid over the advertised price, with letting agents even encouraging it. She and her friends did this when they found a four-bed house in Southville listed for £2,500.
“We were getting desperate and it was super nice, we bid £2,600 which was already insane with our salaries,” she said. They even wrote a cover letter with their pictures, but got turned down as another group had bid higher.
Other measures included in the motion are enforcing the ban on letting agent fees, establishing a regular renters’ forum and lobbying the government to introduce a national landlord register and abolish the ‘Right to Rent’ checks.
Renhard told the Cable: “This motion allows the council to put its full weight behind getting rent controls introduced in Bristol. The current government’s reluctant to allow us to trial them, but with Labour pledging to devolve significant powers to local government, this gives us a clear path to getting them introduced.
“In the more immediate term, this motion pledges our support for expanding landlord licensing city-wide, builds on our work tackling unscrupulous landlords, assist efforts to end ‘bidding wars’, and will see the council officially oppose the previously proposed expansion of right-to-buy to Housing Associations – and instead put suggestions to government for ways to increase home ownership without depleting social housing stock.
“Alongside our work expanding the supply of housing, with 2,563 homes built last year alone, including the most affordable homes for 12 years, these policies are sorely needed to tackle Bristol’s housing crisis.
Councillors will debate and vote on the motion at Full Council on Tuesday. With the joint largest parties, Labour and the Greens, bringing the motion, it is almost certain to get majority support.
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What’s better than rent control? A tax on vacant lots and unoccupied buildings. While rent control makes it less attractive to get tenants, a vacant-property tax makes it less attractive NOT to! Such a tax, although sometimes called a “vacancy tax”, is not limited to what real-estate agents call “vacancies” — that is, properties available for rent. It also applies to vacant lots and empty properties that are not on the rental market, and prompts the owners to get them habitable and occupied in order to avoid the tax.
By the way, the desired *avoidance* of the vacant-property tax would increase economic activity, expanding the bases of other taxes and allowing their rates to be reduced, so that everyone else—including tenants, home owners, and landlords with tenants—would pay LESS tax!