With sub-standard property conditions and unfair treatment by landlords, what reforms are needed to improve London's growing private rented sector?

Recent work

Rising rents, rogue landlords and poor housing conditions on the agenda for the December Housing & Regeneration Committee meeting. Boroughs, charities and tennants groups gave evidence to Members. Watch a webcast of the meeting, which was held on 18 December.

Members of the Housing and Regeneration Committee invited guests to answer questions on the best way to increase the supply of new housing in London. These included Olympic Village investors, Qatari Diar; housing association L&Q, who have recently decided to spend £250 million on 1,000 new homes; and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, whose innovative partnership will see £64 million of private equity – in return for free land contribution from the borough – build 500 new homes at a mixture of “affordable” rents. Watch a webcast of the meeting, held on Wednesday 7 November.

Housing and Regeneration Committee Members hosted a lively discussion with a range of expert guests about how record-breaking rents are affecting Londoners – particularly families and people on low incomes - and what could be done to cushion the impacts.  Watch a webcast of the meeting, held on Thursday 20 September. 

September's meeting was the first of three public hearings the Committee will hold as it reviews potential reforms to the capital’s private rented sector. 

Have your say

As one in four Londoners who now rents privately, as part of this investigatiopn we asked tennants and landlords to submit evidence.

Questions we asked to be considered were:

Is your rent fair for the size and condition of the property? Does your landlord honour the terms of your lease and carry out maintenance when necessary? Are you confident you’ll get your rent deposit back? Is renting your choice, or a stop-gap?  Perhaps you're a landlord who has had problems with tenants?  Or do you think London's rented stock could be managed better?

Our investigation

Our Housing and Regeneration Committee is conducting a detailed review of the reforms needed to raise the quality of London’s private rented sector, which now comprises around 850,000 homes, houses one in four Londoners, and continues to grow.

The private rented sector is also increasingly used to house homeless people, low-income families and other vulnerable households who would previously have lived in social housing - without the standards or security of that tenure, and at a cost of around £400 million a year to the public purse.

Our investigation is aimed at identifying ways to make the private rented sector more affordable and secure, and with better standards – particularly for families and vulnerable people - and pushing the Mayor, boroughs and government to implement them.

Building on previous work on the physical condition of the private rented sector, Committee Members will examine ways to make the sector better quality, more secure and more affordable – particularly for families and vulnerable people. 

Read the full scope of our investigation: