This is fantastic stuff! Glad to see someone from ‘my generation’ write at length about this stuff in a genuinely critical and thoughtful way. More of the same please!

Absolutely brilliant article. I’m moving into a household of they type you described this summer (due to limited accommodation on campus) and I had no idea about this bill. I know exactly what you mean and I just wish there was something I could do about it other than casting my vote (which, in all honesty, has very, very little impact).

“Looking at these three grinning hairdos, it’s painfully obvious that none of them will bring that revolution, even though all three are so frantic to repeat the word ‘change’ that I keep expecting one of them to voice his desire for the Queen to appoint him Britain’s first African-American Prime Minister.”

A+, would LOL again.

This wasn’t hidden, back in January this section of the bill was highlighted and proudly trumpeted by the government. It got a positive write-up here at liberal conspiracy too: Don Paskini showed how it was the result of grassroots pressure from ordinary Labour activists. http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/29/the-fruits-of-people-power/

Put simply, we want proper housing, not HMOs springing up all over the place.

Its a good rant, but I’m afraid there’s two reasons why I think it’s a bit naive.

First, the more apathetic young people get the more likely they are to be ignored. Of course ‘Generation Y’ could collectively sulk and demand people pay attention to them or they won’t – but there are too many other groups vying for attention for the youngsters to be paid special attention.

Look at the campaigning in the US in contrast. They have big registration drives there aimed at young people. Those people are politicised, they get registered and then politicians have to listen. It happened with Obama – they supported him and as a result he paid more attention to them and courted that vote.

Its chicken and egg. If this Generation Y want to be listened, then your answer is registration drives and active campaigning on issues.

Secondly, I’m not sure what revolution you want. Are you really expecting one? And I don’t even mean that rhetorically – even if you really wanted a revolution then you have to show majority public opinion in that direction.

What I mean is, many people want a revolution on an area that say about 10-20% of the population may support. That’s not good enough. You need about 60% support. And then a strategically targeted campaign. Who said a representative democracy is easy?
At least pray we are not in the US where everything is in deadlock thanks to hyper-partisan bickering.

And tim f confirms my point.

A section of the population got organised and made themselves heard. Eventually, the govt listened.

Another section of the population gets annoyed they are not heard, and instead of getting organised they get apathetic and tune out. And they complain about it but don’t get organised and do anything about.

Guess which one is going to win.

As I see it, the two problems are:

1. Rents are too expensive
2. Landlords are cramming too many people into houses

Both of these are symptoms of a (state-enforced) concept of private property that allows people to own far more (houses, land, etc) than they can personally use. This is the underlying problem.

Real solutions to this problem would require a more fundamental shift than the “everyday revolution” the OP suggests. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do now – it’s not all or nothing.

Petitioning the government to intercede a little on behalf of the people against the obscene logic of capital is the liberal / social democratic answer, and while certainly worthwhile, and better than nothing, does not solve the problem. There is a false dichotomy here – whine and do nothing, or ask nicely and hope someone listens.

The OP’s glib characterisation of radical politics as similar to “the rapture” is annoying, and feeds into the apathetic discourse that paints serious change as impossible utopia. Quiet, radical upheaval is already happening. Why not quit whining and get involved? http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

@5
“The more apathetic young people get the more likely they are to be ignored”

You’re right Sunny; this is chicken and egg – which came first? I’m willing to bet it was ignoring us. By our very definition we aren’t experienced activists. It’s very hard to make yourself heard whilst learning to talk.

I’m willing to bet it was ignoring us. By our very definition we aren’t experienced activists.

Possibly. Though the youth have always been ignored in society by virtue of the fact that they were never that politically active. So now we have a generation that wants more. Great. But how do you plan to get more power? Complaining will only go so far.

Joshua, while being more radical, offers some routes. That suggests a way forward I’d say. Join these groups. Organise. Campaign. Get strategic. What’s the point of doing politics otherwise?

Going to get ridiculous when they try to enforce that.

I flagged this up in November: http://www.cuca.org.uk/2009/11/02/deregulation/

Regulations almost always end up hurting the little guy.

well i live and work within the catchment area of students mentioned (loughborough ) and i can tell you its much improved since the new system .
for anyone who has to live by the standards imposed on everyday working persons ( bed before midnight, up at six to work etc etc ) we find we can actually DO that now, not have to listen to the constant blasts from people who only have two lectures a week partying like they don’t care ( and indeed they don’t )
middle class wankers slumming it for a couple of years at uni make me laugh, forget your “gender awareness workshops ” and try getting up at six to go work in a real workshop for a week .
of course tho, if mummy and daddy live out in the stockbroker belt you can always get away from the party lifestyle for a rest and battery recharge, us poor proles only get two months off from it in the summer………..

quiet, radical upheaval

Upheavals are never quiet, especially not radical ones.

Laurie, this is all well and good, but it just comes across as complaining about the plight you’ve chosen to put yourself in without saying what kind of ‘revolution’ it is you want to see happen, or how it would come about. You criticise the party leaders for talking about ‘change’ but a “quiet upheaval” sounds like ‘change’ to me.

And yes, given your background, you really have chosen this life for yourself, which is fine but please stop wearing it as some kind of badge of credibility, because it grants you none – you can tell us how horrible it is to live in the shit, but there are people out there who, unlike yourself, really had no choice about. You’re just rubbing your chosen poverty in our faces in an attempt to make yourself look cool. There’s no credibility, honour or cleverness in that. It just makes you look fake and desperate to seem relevant, despite your Oxford degree. There is no shame in having a comfortable lifestyle, and if you feel in every post here you need to remind us of the dire personal circumstances you have imposed on yourself to make your arguments work, then you are probably making the wrong arguments.

“As far as me and my housemates are concerned”

Hang on, what the fuck is this, Penny? Who taught you grammar? Go stand in the corner.

On topic, it’s very strange that all three parties are campaigning for an election that could go either way, yet none of them have any policies beyond fixing the economy (which will, let’s be honest, fix itself in two years’ time) and a vague, hand-wavey notion of healing society.

There’s strikes everywhere, and no party wants to be on their side. There’s millions of agency temp workers with no rights, and nobody wants to know. There are so many votes out there that would have gone to anyone who showed the slightest interest, but now it’s too late to be convincing.

So when the council busybody comes round, you just say I’m fucking one or more of the other occupants. Council busybody fucks off.

To be fair, it has been a very long time since Labour was on the side of strikers. Even in the 80s, Kinnock hated Scargill, and still does:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/9193687/Kinnock_and_Scargill__how_the_feud_began/

@4 – indeed.

I thought the point of this legislation was in part to prevent “exploitation” of the sort Laurie is complaining about?

Earth to Laurie – “inner London” is crowded and expensive. There are other places to live or, with your qualifications, better paying jobs to go for.

Strange laws about HMOs are hardly new. 5, 6 years ago they had an impact on me.

I have a flat in Bath. What were once single occupancy Gerogian homes have, over the past century or so, been split up into flats, usually one per floor. This seems a pretty reasonable use of what is, after all, a World Heritage Site.

So, one building, six floors (basement to attic) and six flats. The definition of whether it was an HMO or not was whether the majority (ie, 4 out of 6) were rented rather than owner occupied. If so then much more restrictive rules about the internal design were applied. For example, in the galley kitchen, a certain minimum amount of preparation space was demanded. Further, what had been windows allowing some natural light to enter said galley kitchen through the intervening room must be sealed up with fireproof material. The kitchen door must be a self sealing door (on a riser).

Such rules applied to all flats in the building if 4 out of 6 were rented. If three out of six were owner occupied then they were not in any.

Now whether these are good or bad trules is entirely not what I’m talking about. Rather, only to point out that there’s nothing new about such odd rules applying to HMOs nor anything new about slightly odd descriptions of what makes an HMO.

How about Hartlepool? You can rent a three-bedroom house with a nice garden, within easy reach of wonderful countryside for the price of a one-bedroom flat in Hackney. Quality of life hugely better.
But further afield, the glory of globalisation and free movement is that not only has it enabled us to obtain superior workforce from the EU, and the rest of the world, but you can live elsewhere in the EU very easily.
But you yourself, Laurie Penny, I believe are very much in favour of immigration. Last time I looked, around over 2 million non-Brits have come to London in the past 15 years. If they come to live in London, then you either build dwellings in London to house them, or Londoners have got to go elsewhere to make room for them, which they have been doing steadily for the past couple of decades.

Forgot to add: the third alternative is that London just becomes ever more crowded. There’s plenty of room for new dwellings on Hampstead Heath, isn’t there? It’s not as though it’s used for anything useful.

Probably the first article of yours that I absolutely and totally disagree with.

“Right now, I pay half my meagre salary to live in a room the size of a normal person’s toilet (we suspect it used to be a toilet before a dodgy landlord modded the place) in an overcrowded houseshare in inner London, the fourth such houseshare I’ve lived in since moving here in 2007.”

And this is the system you are defending?

How’s about a really radical idea – people shouldn’t be allowed to make a fortune by buying up lots of properties, renting them out when they are in an appalling condition, exploiting their tenants, and making life a misery for longer term residents.

High concentrations of unregulated multiple occupation housing can obviously have a negative impact on an area. People affected tend to blame the students, migrants, and others who tend to live in multiple occupation housing.

What is really positive about this legislation is that instead of kicking the victims, it puts extra duties and responsibilities on the wealthy people who are causing the problem – the landlords who have 12 or more migrants crammed into one of their properties, the ones who just use their property to make money and let it turn into a slum, the ones who do nothing when their tenants have problems which need sorting out. And as Sunny and Tim pointed out, this legislation came about from grassroots pressure – long term residents working together with tenants, getting the support of good landlords, persuading the government to regulate a group of people who got filthy rich under Blair.

This is something to celebrate, not criticise. The revolution won’t come by sticking up for the rich and powerful.

But Don, there’s no language anywhere in the bill or the rhetoric surrounding it that suggests this is meant to protect young people and those in vulnerable housing. It’s about preventing more shared homes from being built – but where is the alternative? Where are we supposed to live?

Of course I don’t like living in a bedroom that used to be a toilet. How silly of me! I’ll just move into a flat on my own, then, shall I? – Or not, because I need some sort of shared living arrangement to be able to afford to live near my job. And that’s not going to get any easier unless someone actually decides to build some more houses.

Of course landlords cramming people into slums is a problem. I really, really do know. I’ve lived in rat-infested holes for the last 3 years, and it wasn’t nice, but it was necessary. And just getting rid of HMOs isn’t going to make it any easier for us, in the long term.

blanco@16

Forgive my poor use of language. I don’t think any party should blindly support strikers for the sake of them striking. Striking isn’t appropriate in every case.

What I meant to say is that, were I a politician in search of votes, I’d be focusing at least some energy on convincing disillusioned or unfairly-treated workers that I was their man. Those votes are like armfuls of low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked – why doesn’t anyone want them?

Not one leader has entertained the possibility that Willie Walsh is being disingenuous or opportunistic, and all seem to agree that what’s good for Willie is good for cabin crew staff. We don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s why you ask such questions. The parties are meant to be in opposition, but nobody’s actually doing any opposing. That’s weird, right?

Yes, I’m with Don P and Tim F squarely on this one. I’ve supported the lobby for this new legislation in my own area for the very reasons they identify, and see it as requiring landlords to provide decent accommodation in time, not as getting at young people. As Don says, this is important in areas like mine not least because quite small houses have been stuffed to the gills with exploited migrant workers working the fields in the surrounding growing areas.

Lots of films end with a revolution; it’s an easy romantic idea that taps into peoples fantasies about rejecting everything that they see as wrong in the world. But they end with it so they don’t have to show what happens next. Revolutions (while, admittedly, sometimes neccesary in the face of horrific human suffering) are bloody, dangerous affairs.

Useful, meaningful and constructive change always comes slowly – like building a house brick by brick – try to intigate change too fast and you can quickly lose control and end up with dictatorships and all kinds of shit… i’m not an expert on the subject so I welcome correction, but I can’t really think of any happy revolutions (admittedly some consider the american war of independence a revolution rather than a war).

It’s a lovely idea – for a group of middle class revolutionaries with plenty of food, education, TVs and ipods to rise up against their hardship and make a utopia – but I fear you may have watched your DVD box set of Star Wars a few too many times.

How’s about a really radical idea – people shouldn’t be allowed to make a fortune by buying up lots of properties, renting them out when they are in an appalling condition, exploiting their tenants, and making life a misery for longer term residents.

It’s a marvellous idea, but do we really imagine that those landlords are going to see the error of their ways and accept the hit to their bottom line? Or are they going to respond to these changes by screwing their tenants even more?

Living in someone’s broom cupboard is far from ideal, but it beats sleeping under a bridge. Sure, we’d all love it if there was a sufficient supply of affordable housing, but there simply isn’t. Last time I was living in an overcrowded flat, the landlords knew nothing about it. We lived like that not because some evil top-hatted capitalist forced us to, but because it was the only way we could afford to keep a roof over our collective heads whilst living somewhere where we could all find work. And it was still a hell of a lot better than the conditions my parents grew up in…

Surely the problem is that the only real solution to the housing crisis is to build a lot more housing in London and the south east.

This would bring down rents and plug the shortages.

But it would also get a lot of NIMBYs up in arms and probably bring down the house prices on which we’ve built most of the last 15 years of economic growth, so it’s little wonder that no party is even looking at this issue.

“Surely the problem is that the only real solution to the housing crisis is to build a lot more housing in London and the south east.”

Not quite. The production cost of housing in the SE is not defined by the cost of building it. That’s the same as it is in Manchester or Hartlepool. It’s the cost of getting permission to build upon land in the SE.

Thus to reduce the price of housing in the SE it is necessary to reduce the cost of such planning permission….and economics 101 gives us the answer there. Grant more such planning applications to increase supply of land that you can build on.

@28 Er… yes. That doesn’t really contradict what I was saying, it’s just a more detailed version of the same point.

I haven’t seen many politicians clamouring to use more land for house-building. Politics 101 suggests this is because the people who already own houses have more votes than the ones who might one day move into the area. So, planning rules stay the same and demand continues to exceed supply.

Hi Laurie,

I do agree on building more homes, but a solution to the problem requires both more homes and higher standards.

Problem is, if you build more homes without any extra regulation, what will happen is that the buy to let landlords will buy them up, either to rent out at the maximum profit or just to leave empty in the hope of rising property values. Net effect – no benefit to people in our position, more profits for the already rich.

The lack of planning permission for HMOs also contributes to rising house prices. Someone bidding for a 3 bedroom house who intends to have 12 people all paying him rent for the dubious pleasure of living there is always going to be able to outbid a family on medium incomes – this is one of the things driving up prices and making alternatives to multiple occupation living unaffordable.

I just don’t think it is necessary to have a system where landlords cram people into slums. Many landlords do look after their tenants and do provide things like shared amenity space, rather than e.g. coverting the living room into another bedroom to make more money. They still make a decent return on their investment without charging more to their tenants than the slum landlords. It is a strange feature of our system where the ones which extract the maximum rent for the minimum service are the ones who profit most, but this isn’t inevitable.

This legislation is a small step, but it is a step in the right direction. Personally, I’d like to see an option where the right to buy is extended to private tenants, so that tenants could club together to buy homes off their landlord, with a government funded discount. Technically difficult, but that really would make a difference.

“It’s a marvellous idea, but do we really imagine that those landlords are going to see the error of their ways and accept the hit to their bottom line? Or are they going to respond to these changes by screwing their tenants even more?”

Many landlords do treat their tenants well.

Another idea which would be very popular and effective would be to massively ramp up the penalties for bad landlords who screw over their tenants or who let their property become a slum. Bigger fines to be spent on improvements to local services, time in prison, and confiscation of their homes in the worst cases – I believe the legislation is probably already in place and it would quickly lead to some very positive behavioural change.

That “strange feature” is a symptom of capitalism generally though, isn’t it? Regulation is necessary, but not much of a solution. It raises that minimum but the forces act the same way. Landlords will always try to find loopholes.

How about instead of a private right to buy, genuine housing cooperatives where the people who live there hold the living space in common? (See my link above…)

“I do agree on building more homes, but a solution to the problem requires both more homes and higher standards.”

Eh? Higher standards makes houses more expensive. Must do.

Unfortunately, as the UK’s pensions system is kaput, retaining a second property for rental is a route that many middle aged families decide to follow. They are not Rachman’s or slum landlords, merely people who used the capital from their first properties (flats usually) to move to a house when the kids come along.
They make up a considerable portion of the rental market and to characterize it only as slum landlords v opressed tenants is a bit naive.

Having said that, I know a few Eastern European builders who, having set up here early on, have bought properties and packed them solid with newer immigrants who spend their waking hours either building/repairing large houses for affluent property owners or working in the low paid service industries. But, that’s just the tough path immigrants know the world over.

As far as HMOs and students are concerned I can understand the deleterious effect they can have on an area. I shudder when I look back at the lack of consideration I had towards my neighbours all those years ago – especially now when I hear the noise coming from the other side of the party wall as the ‘kids’ in the ‘Animal House’ next door start playing with their Wii.

Laurie – It’s not about stopping HMOs from being built, it’s about stopping landlords buying up housing in a certain areas and destroying the community by converting it all into HMOs for a transient population. Manchester and Leeds City Councils have both approved huge student focussed blocks of flats (for more than two residents) over the last five years, and will probably approve scores more in the next five (as it’s the other part of the construction industry still active in the northern cities). HMOs are clearly being built.

What they’re trying to prevent is the current situation getting worse. Large tracts of what could be prime family housing in these cities are dominated by a socially irresponsibly term time community completely disengaged from the civic life. The councils want to see a return of family housing to family use; but landlords can price most people who might see areas like Hyde Park or Withington as a good deal out of the market; and once the students move in everyone else who can moves out.

I’ve been in your situation (and I might be in it again soon enough) so I sympathise with it, but London is not typical and what’s ‘good’ for the reatively minor slice of the population you represent is not good for most of the country. I agree there does need to be better provision of housing for young people in London, but if the current situation is so inadequate then surely the correct campaigning focus would be the private lettings market; and not defending a policy that is making beggars of other cities.

“Higher standards makes houses more expensive. Must do.”

Yes, but the problem is not just shortage of housing, but shortage of decent quality homes. Converting most of London and suburbs of university towns into slums would increase the supply of housing, but it is still not a desirable policy aim.

@34

That’s funny, because when we were students living in shared accommodation in London, we made sure we *always* got the OK from the neighbours if we were going to have a noisy gathering and tried to be as courteous as possible.

I think this is one of those “suck it and see” things, in that I can see both sides of the argument. I’m amused by the comments that seem primed to veer into “Four Yorkshiremen” territory shortly though.

“Converting most of London and suburbs of university towns into slums would increase the supply of housing, but it is still not a desirable policy aim.”

Forgive me if I rather object to “HMO” being taken as a synonym for “slum”. Are the mansion blocks of London (Dolphin Square for example) slums? Is the centre of Bath a slum? Certainly almost all of the Georgian houses there have been converted. There’s only one full house left in the Royal Cresecent and perhaps two or three in The Circus. These are slums?

Come on now, as average household size falls then clearly the current built estate is going to be sliced up into smaller units.

tim f: “Put simply, we want proper housing, not HMOs springing up all over the place.”

Yes, but that is not going to be the effect of the bill: it’s like attempting to tackle poverty by banning being poor. The bill doesn’t provide any mechanism for provision of proper housing.

The effect of the bill will not really be that HMOs reduce in number (since given the cost of housing people need them to provide a roof over their heads), but that they become entirely illegal. As a consequence their inhabitants will have to live knowing that at any time they could be evicted, and knowing that they will have no legal redress against whatever their illegal landlord should choose to do.

This isn’t actually just a young people issue: it’s a fact that if you earn a below average wage in London (and a number of other cities) and don’t have a partner, you must live in an HMO. There are no other realistic options. Social housing is by and large not available; as a single person if you ask the Council for support with housing you’ll typically get an LHA payment and be told to find an HMO to spend it on. This affects young people, but it also affects the poor generally. In the past I’ve lived in HMOs containing low paid 30-somethings and in one case a pensioner.

The fact is that this legislation, if enforced, will remove the buffer (crowding poorer people into HMOs) which has so far prevented our lack of housing construction – particularly social housing – leading to illegal slum housing or mass homelessness.

No, not all HMOs are slums, and as I’ve said before many landlords actually look after their properties, treat their tenants right etc etc. This is why I just don’t believe that these regulations will lead to mass homelessness etc, what will happen is that the people who find it too onerous to provide a minimum decent standard for their tenants will sell up and find other things to do with their money, and more homes will be bought (a) by people who want to live there and (b) by people who will treat their tenants better.

The current system offers maximum advantage for the people who buy a property and then do the bare minimum for their tenants and try to figure out exciting ways of screwing them out of money.

@39: “Yes, but that is not going to be the effect of the bill: it’s like attempting to tackle poverty by banning being poor.”

I just wanted to requote that. Well put.

In London, if you’re single, under 40 and not an investment banker, you’ve got basically no chance of living on your own. This bill offers no mechanism to fix that.

Well said, Laurie.

I think you’re turning libertarian or anarchist or something.

Brilliant.

Ignore Sunny and Don- they’d like to control how much tomato sauce you’re allowed to squirt from the bottle.

Have to say I as far as revolution is concerned, I can’t detect the whiff of cordite in the air but if you’d like to set a time and place for it to start, I’ll definitely be there.

#39

Well the government have committed to be building 10,000 quality council homes each year by the end of the next parliament. And over the last couple of years seem to have finally woken up to the need for quality council housing.

We seem to be rehashing debates from the late forties. Labour won the argument for the need for more housing, but the Tories wanted to build lots of cheap housing quickly. Nye Bevan, under a lot of pressure, refused and built a lot of quality council housing, but obviously he couldn’t build as many as quickly as if he’d settled for less. The houses he built (at least those which are still under local control) are still some of the best council homes which exist today. Nothing but the best for the working class, as Bevan used to say.

#41

I earn a below average wage (lets say it’s in the teens) and support my unemployed partner whilst living in our own flat in North London.

It’s tiny and hard work – but it’s not impossible.

Bluepillnateion re: 37,

I remember telling our neighbours about parties not long before people started arriving, making lots of noise working in the early hours, and having a great time as if everyone around us enjoyed quadruple glazing. I was much better than many, but now I understand why people sold up so eagery to Mrs Kelly, a landlord who owned many properties around Manchester’s Oxford Road.

Now I can hear a pin drop, so much so that I wasn’t unhappy when the nearest tree along my street became infested with ants and was cut down by the council thereby depriving an early rising bird od it’s pre-dawn perch.

Approx 80% of the houses along my street, including the one in which I live, have been convereted into HMOs and every month some buggers will innocently move in and have a house-warming party which lasts untill the early hours. 11 months and 3 1/2 weeks later they’ll have a leaving party just before the next lot move in and repeat the cycle. Only nowadays none of them give warning as they think, correctly I suppose, it goes with the territory.

[42] “Ignore Sunny and Don- they’d like to control how much tomato sauce you’re allowed to squirt from the bottle” – or even the size of chips apparently?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/brown-now-dicking-about-with-fish-and-chips-201003042527/

Can I just re-iterate that the last time I was living in an HMO, the landlords thought there were about half as many people living there as there actually were, and that if they’d found out the truth, we’d all have been out on the street? High occupancy is not always a result of landlords exploiting tenants – it’s frequently a result of people taking in homeless friends, or people on low incomes having to split the rent more ways than the lease allows.

What else were we supposed to do? Seriously, I’d really like to know.

@44 Do you rent or own? If the latter, when did you buy?

@47 precisely. I was in exactly the same situation last year, and still am (I’m living in what’s technically supposed to be the cupboard).

Worth noting that Shelter supports greater regulation of private renting, along with a range of other good policy ideas:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/news/march_2010/spotlight_on_private_renting

http://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_issues/Improving_private_renting

“What else were we supposed to do? Seriously, I’d really like to know.”

What you did – take in homeless friends and split the rent. And in the longer term, support efforts to make sure people aren’t forced into this situation.

The current system is desperately failing people, and according to anti-homelessness campaigners, the solution involves a mix of increasing supply of homes and regulating the private rented sector. This legislation isn’t a panacea, but it is part of the solution, not part of the problem.

If the problem is one of supply – which surely it is – then it’s unclear how increased regulation is going to help.
Rather it will increase costs or reduce supply or some combination of the two.

Of course, there’s no point in observing that the UK’s population growth might not be quite as sustainable as commenters on other threads seem ever happy to assume, is there?

The current system is desperately failing people, and according to anti-homelessness campaigners, the solution involves a mix of increasing supply of homes and regulating the private rented sector.

I’ve got no problem with that, but doing the latter, in this specific fashion, without the former seems to be begging for unintended consequences. Sometimes an action which would be beneficial as part of a balanced package of measures is counter-productive when taken in isolation. Without a serious improvement in the availability of affordable social housing, measures like this are at best just pissing in the wind. Shit housing that you can afford is better than good housing you can’t afford, and in the absence of affordable good housing, eliminating the affordable shit housing just means that there’s no affordable housing at all.

47. Dunc

Can I just re-iterate that the last time I was living in an HMO, the landlords thought there were about half as many people living there as there actually were, and that if they’d found out the truth, we’d all have been out on the street?

Same here, although in my case it was the building inspectors who didn’t know what was going on.

My room was formed by the landlord partitioning off the end of the front room. So when the building inspectors were due to visit to give the place the all clear (‘cos it was a former warehouse, and when we moved in, the other floors in the building were still being worked on), I had to move out for a few days while the temporary wall to my room was ripped down. Then, once the inspectors had had a good poke about and satisfied themselves that the accommodation was suitable for the number of people the landlord had told them he was going to house, the wall was put back up and I was allowed to move back in….

And I suspect this is exactly the type of thing that will happen under this new legislation, because crap landlords will always find a way to cram as many people into a dwelling as they can.

Why are people in the comments thread talking as if Houses of Multiple Occupancy are a bad thing? I share the view and experiences of the author in having lived in a converted house with 7 other people for the past 3 years, and having had it been the most positive experience of my life. I don’t want to live in a house with 2 or 3 people, it would be shit. The 8 of us can cook for each other less than once a week, do washing up less than once a week, and even the quietest night in is a buzz of activity. We share everything, so none of us really need to buy very much. We all do different things I have a wealth of experience from areas that I would have never got to experience otherwise. All this legislation does is penalise me and make it more difficult for me to find a big enough house by limiting the supply.

It’s totally dishonest and misses the spirit of the bill to say that this was done to somehow benefit tenants. Nobody is being forced into large houses at this stage, there are plenty of bedsits and 2 or 3 person terraces for those who want a bit of peace and quiet. As the author mentions, this legislation was sold as a kind of fightback against “studentification” in cities like Manchester and Brighton. It’s just a cynical move to win “grey marginal” seats full of old Daily Mail reading Tories who want national service restated. It amounts to an attack on young people who don’t necessarily want to live in a nuclear family and enjoy living in large groups, and the worst part is that it isn’t even going to satisfy the group that its aimed to appease because you’re never going to stop the older generation whining about young people – its just a fact of life that always has and always will be the case. The only thing you can do is wait for them to die and hope they don’t do too much damage on their way out.

jon @ 55:
“The 8 of us can cook for each other less than once a week, do washing up less than once a week, and even the quietest night in is a buzz of activity”.

If you like a buzz of activity, I guess that’s fine. If you don’t, not so fine.

The reason it didn’t make the headlines is because it’s something that’s been around a while.

“Houses of Multiple Occupancy” have been regulated since at least 1962, if not earlier.

This order – which affects the ability of councils to regulate where they can be, and doesn’t affect the legal regulation of them under the Housing Act – was signed off a month ago, before the election was called; it came into force on Tuesday because 6 April is one of the two standard days for new regulations to come into force.

It is the result of a consultation process which began in early 2008, following Parliamentary debate in 2007, and recieved almost a thousand responses.

I don’t think it’s a particularly sensible regulation, and I agree the unintended consequences could be more than predicted, but it’s a real mistake to think it’s somehow being rushed through before an election or that there was no public discussion on the issue.

I need some sort of shared living arrangement to be able to afford to live near my job

I thought you were a freelance journalist?

And if not, unless the cost of a monthly London travelcard zones 1-3 (£120) is prohibitive, then living near your job is a luxury almost no Londoners can afford. It’s a nice idea but there are economic reasons why it’s so damn hard.

No-one’s penalised for being young. This legislation (certainly from Manchester’s point of view) is aimed at helping people who have had to live in areas where arrogant, selfish, stupid students think it is acceptable to the lives of decent working people an absolute misery. I used to be a student, and not too long ago, but my mother taught me to treat others with respect. Sadly, a large proportion of the students who live in this great city don’t get it at all. The council’s done a blinding job on this and it will hopefully improve the quality of life for large numbers of people. And lest you think I’m some kind of anti-student t*sser, let me make it clear that most of the blighters are decent kids, but sadly there is a large minority of them who shouldn’t be allowed to leave the home unaccompanied.

As for those of you who live in communes, you need to grow up, but never fear, this legislation will still allow you to live the hippy dream.

Jon – HMOs may not be a bad thing for all tennants but they’re bad for some tennants and are often a bad thing for the local community. When I was living in Hackney (in a house of three single people) the family next door moved away for a year and four students/recent graduates moved in. It was a nightmare. They played music all night in the week, they left their garden in a state and they had parties every few weeks. If they were having an impact on my quality of life (I was 24 and working full time) I can’t imagine the effect they’d have had if a young family or an old couple had been living where I was.

Obviously young people have to live somewhere and due to the expense they will often have to live in shared accomodation; but to suggest that local councils limiting their numbers within a certain area is an ‘attack on young people’ is absurd. It’s simply protecting a community from the negative impact young people can, and often do, have.

@48

I rent

@61 Fair enough. Then I accept I’m probably overstating it.

I stand by my disbelief that the solution to the housing shortage is to cut the supply yet further.

@ Cath

OMG!!! I can’t believe anyone would do such a thing!

At which point did people get the idea that housing was a luxury item?

Oh, and great article, Laurie.

If you feel you are being penalised for being young, surely the worst thing to then do is be apathetic? That only guarantees further penalisation and does nothing to improve your situation.

You people are weird. The expenses scandal exposes the current crop of MPs to be shit, but no, instead of working to either replace the current shower with decent MPs or to change the system altogether, you complain, and you moan, and you don’t get involved – because you’re apathetic.

Either change things, or shut the hell up, you apathetic scum. Laurie, you went to Oxford, you’ve got no excuse to be so damn short-sighted.

The cost of a pleasant but unspectacular one bedroom flat in the area where I live is 19 times my annual salary. If I went on a list for social housing, I’d be unlikely to reach the top of it in my lifetime.

I’m baffled as to how this legislation can possibly be progressive if it isn’t accompanied by measures to more affordable properties and/or social housing available.

As far I can see, the only likely outcome is that people will continue to be forced into private shared rental accommodation but landlords will have an excuse for making that accommodation more expensive to rent.