Life during lockdown

I live in a property that's been paid off so everything our landlady takes in rent is a pure profit. Yet, she refused to discount the rent for the lockdown even though everyone in the house lost their jobs. I'm struggling to hear of an example of one landlord that is not greedy for money, even in the current situation.

The rent in London is unaffordable and now with the furlough scheme winding down some people will be facing redundancies so the situation will get worse for renters as more people will probably face the need to move out of their accommodation. 

Why do landlords insist on maintaining their profits when everyone else is having their incomes cut? And why the government hasn't seen to doing anything to make it compulsory for the landlords to reduce the rent by 20% for those whose incomes been cut?

Why the government and the Mayor's office fail to do anything to bring regulations as to how much landlords can charge in rent? Like those who commented before me, majority of rented properties are of sub-standard with old windows, poor insulation, old building structures (allowing for pest issues) and many more. Tiny single rooms are being advertised as "cosy double". Location doesn't matter - rooms in zones 3 or 4 are being advertised for 650pcm. With the cost of travel that's over £800 just in rent and travel costs when a lot of people still earn £1100 - 1200 a month net. That leaves a person with £300-400 for a month to cover all other living costs. 

Why is it so difficult for those in power to understand that people are struggling financially? Employers cut the wages, landlords raise the prices, and so how are we supposed to find money to live?

I am a tenant of the city of London Almshouses Corporation Charity.  As a nursing assistant working in the NHS with Covid 19 patients for minimal wage, at the end of the day my wages do not cover my expenses especially rent and they have dragged me through the housing Courts even during a pandemic to appear or to bring in wage slips.  The kitchen is lined with mould that affects my breathing, all the windows are painted so neither I nor staff can open them for anything.  Now they have stopped my zero hours contract work due to lack of shifts so I have no wages coming in yet I cannot go on furlough or claim universal credit.  No one is saying how I am to get by.

Tom Copley's refusal to respond to housing association tenants asking to participate in his  housing "taskforce", is brutal. The crisis has really underlined the contrast between rich and poor households in London. This includes sidelining of social tenants, many of whom are the health, retail and care key workers everyone has depended upon. It's as if we're all expected to claim benefits rather than our landlords, with £millions in surpluses, offering rent holidays to tenants affected by loss of income. We're not invited to Tom's taskforce, though our landlords and developers are. Our community knowledge and professional expertise and our neighbourhoods' contributions to voluntary and public sector Covid19 responses are unacknowledged. Is this exclusion deliberate or merely thoughtless and therefore going to be addressed? 

As a joint tenant in a 3 bedroom house, as one tenant left due to Covid19 giving the legal 1 month notice, finding a replacement in these times is excruciatingly difficult. Why not protect tenants against landlords unwilling to negotiate the price during the months one of the rooms is vacant? It is not fair that the consequences of c19 fall 100% onto tenants while landlords get unaffected!

Also, three ideas to make London a fairer place for renters:

-To extend the responsibilities of landlords towards the maintenance of the property. How is it still legal to rent properties that are not insulated at all, or that have terrible windows with no double glaze or poorly fitted, which leads to skyrocketing heating bills and internal condensation aka mould problems? London properties are at a sub-standard level of maintenance right now, improper of a first world city, and it is outrageous that regulations are not stronger in this aspect.

-To put an end to the 'price per week' type of advertisement. Its completely misleading, and a total con for the renter.

-And why is not mandatory to reflect the price per square meter of property rented, in any ad or promotion, be it a room or the whole property?? So renters can get an idea of which landlord is taking the piss, and which one is fair.

Would this ideas be possible to implement/propose in your next council meeting?

Many thanks

The main issue here is with the agents themselves, and landlords are careless !

for 3 years renting payments on time ,flat clean and tidy as well with children in home and yet landlord wanted his flat back ? In the hard time in COVID-19 he wanted his flat back to move in ! What about me how to find another especially all locked ? Searching for nearly 2 months and all what I hear from agents are you working full time do you earn 50.000 a year ? If not then no availability and guess what the flat is only 1.500 a month so they multiply rent by 37 to be eligible to rent anew flat ? 

this really need big attention to be solved .

I have been a very good tenant for many years, when I asked in April for a rent reduction , it was denied by the landlord, who is an overseas investor, non resident and no mortgage. I said i will continue to pay a reduced rent , which I am doing, although not agreed. The landlord will serve notice but I intend to stay in the flat until the end of the tenancy which is end of October. I thought the landlord would be happy that I continue paying even a reduced rent for a few more months, but no. However, landlord s options are limited and it would make no sense to lodge a court action , will cost more than the rent reduction. 

Rents in London have to be regulated as they have been spiraling out of control due to easiness to buy in the UK for all , including dodgy money laundering investors, non transparent, paying no tax. A property tax is imperative as everywhere else in the world. 

In Switzerland f.ex  , non resident buyers are not allowed to buy in many cities , and resident renters get de facto priority , there are many regulations to prevent the type of bad situations endemic in London. 

Im an accidental landlord, my partner has to live where his employment takes him. Why is the law so skewed toward tenants abd assumes all landlords are bad. There are decent landlords out there, we charge just enough to cover the mortgage and keep the property in good repair. We've had tenants who have left it in a bad state, filthy, broken stuff . im sick of scrubbing it making ready for the next tenant, if they leave owing rent there's nothing i can do that doesnt cost me more money to chase down the debt. . But i cant sell as i need a home to live in when i retire.  Rent is high in London, but house prices are too, so we can't reduce the rent. Ive been good to the tenants, and they just dont care cos Mummy isnt there to pick up and clean for them. We need a law to deal with this too and set us on equal footing. 

Is like we are all isolated cases of people that we came too late to the planet, so we are the generation that wont be able to have our own house, or live a good life. Honestly if there is a proper exodus operation of the big cities, where people could go and repopulate little or even abandon towns, and we can have some economical support while settling down... I have a group of friends, that we don't like the way children grow in this city, they need calm and safe, no pollution... We will be glad to live in little communities. We are so busy surviving that we cannot even organize!

Now we are looking to move and share a place with another family because we can't deal with the rent. We even receive a letter of the benefit office saying that we pay, too much rent. We are agree! And they denied the help... This is Ealing. Then we have always have issues in every place we rent because there is no maintenance of the properties. Electrical danger, "typical mold from UK", filtrations, windows passin air, no insulation of loft or external walls... And eviction!

My Landlord, the City of London Almshouses Corporation Charity has been relentless in their eviction proceedings throughout this pandemic and lockdown forcing me to travel and bring in reams of papers on my paultry income in their pursuit of evicting me from this place I cannot afford anyway on a NHS zero hour staff bank contract at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals NHS Trust.  I work very hard but cannot afford to stay here and am resigned to being homeless by Autumn.  Now they have shut down the staff bank I have not worked in days and do not have any rent at all and am not qualified to receive benefits (?) I really loved working with patients.  I do not know what else to do.

I will be honest, I work for the NHS so I have not seen a reduction in my wages. My rent has never been discussed with my landlord since all of this began, but I will say that I got very lucky with my landlords and they are very kind people to me and my two flatmates. I do, however, echo the sentiments of renters in London that I am sick and tired of the quality of home life. I, like many others, moved to London for professional reasons (hoped to have better training opportunities than the small coastal town I grew up in) and also for my passions (huge football fan so moved to live near my club) but I am a 36 year old, single woman on a relatively low NHS wage. I sacrificed being able to live in a small one bed flat back home 5 years ago, and am appalled that at my age there is no end in sight for having to live like a student. My needs are actually minimal - a small space to call my own. I do not NEED luxury this, sumptuous that. Basic accommodation, is fine. When are these flats going to be built? We don't all need concierge and gym, and communal gardens that hike the prices up. These are nice, but not essential. As a keyworker who has at times worked 7 days a week for over a month, my down time at home when permited has not been relaxing, as I am constantly tip-toeing around flatmates. Everyone keeps talking about changing this crisis, but nothing changes? As a keyworker, I feel disgusted that those who are now seen as 'keeping the country running' cannot live like adults in the city they call home. Yes, I am grateful to have a home, but why should it be so hard to live like an adult? It sickens me, why can you pay extortionate rental rates but be denied a mortgage if you can prove that you can pay it? It's disgusting, and it needs to change - and soon. 

I rent privately in Harringay. Following both government and my company's advice, I tried to negotiate a small reduction on my rent with my landlord at the beginning of this. Unsurprisingly, it was denied. Thankfully I was furloughed (not fired), so I had money to keep paying the rent, even though it meant I was acquiring debt on other bills: energy spending skyrocket as we were forced the stay home all the time, online groceries that were the only option for nearly 2 months were very expensive, I had to support a member of my family who lost her job, etc - all of this while my already low income had reduced. The landlord said he couldn't reduce it because he had to keep paying the mortgage of this flat - however, he had the option of mortgage holiday, whilst I don't have any option at all. So this was my solution: getting myself into debt with other bills so I can keep on paying my landlord's mortgage. It sums up perfectly the life in London. I can't wait to get out of this city, but with all the debt I accumulated, I don't even know when I'll manage to save for a deposit elsewhere now. I'm trapped and more than ever I feel like this city is sucking the life out of me.

I rent in London and have a small flat rented out in a small town. If we put in a balance the right to get paid for your flat and the right to have food on your table, there is no comparison. Having a roof over your head is far more important than paying the full rent.

If a renter has lost 50% of their income, they should pass some of it to their landlord, and delaying the rent is not an option, how is possible for someone getting a £9/hr 40h/week salary accrue £2500 debt! 

If you prove you have no income, a big rent reduction should be imposed until the tenant finds a job. However if the tenant finds a job the rent should be scaled back to the appropriate amount. However that amount could well be 10-20% lower than before, because rents can sometimes go up and sometimes down, and that's life.

I really don't understand how landlords feel entitled to be maintaining the same income during the lockdown when majority of the population has had their wages cut. People on furlough are now down to 80% of their earnings and also many of those who are in work have had their hours and subsequently wages cut. I am sick of all the greed that's been going on with renting in London. People do really struggle to make their ends meet every month and now a lot of them face having to move out of the city. Estate agents and landlords complain people are moving out without paying - maybe if you were more reasonable in the first place, people would have been able to keep renting and covering all the costs. Food for thought... The rental market in London has been overpriced and disproportionate to the average earnings since 2009-2010. It honestly is a struggle especially for single people as couples will rent a room or studio flat to save money so the prices keep going up as there will always be someone to rent it. And I'm tired of hearing how landlords are struggling. People pay up to £700 - £800 sometimes with bills on top for a double room in a shared accommodation. How is that leaving landlords short changed? It's all greed to make more money to buy more properties. There should be rent caps and more regulations on the pricing to end this cos for now it's free for all. The location, travel zone has now somehow become irrelevant and prices are pretty much the same across zones 2-4. Maybe better landlords are forced to sell as something has to give. Let people buy their own properties and we can all live in peace. I love London but the rental situation has caused me so much stress that it makes me wonder if it's worth staying here.