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Finding a home in London: “Beds in sheds” to rent – and first-time buyers borrowing four times their salary (28 August 2014)

Date: 28/08/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Finding a home in London: “Beds in sheds” to rent – and first-time buyers borrowing four times their salary

Hillingdon Council has demolished a shed which a rogue landlord was renting out as a “bed in a shed” for £750 per month.

The landlord had been served with a planning enforcement notice which allowed him three months to evict his tenants in the shed and demolish the shed, London newspaper the Evening Standard reports.

However, after he ignored the council’s request that he demolish the structure, Hillingdon Council pulled down the shed and sent him a bill for £10,000.

The council said that the shed was an illegal outbuilding located in West Drayton Road in Hayes.

A spokesman for the council said:

“An enforcement notice had been served on the owner and occupier of the outbuilding – and they were given three months to comply.

“They were ordered to stop illegally renting out – and then to demolish it.

“After failing to do so, the council intervened and took on the work, after the people living there voluntarily moved out.”

The case highlights the desperate shortage of affordable homes to rent in London – and how landlords are profiting by being able to rent out any available building as a home.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has also released new figures which show Londoners who are desperately looking for affordable properties to buy are willing to take out mortgages worth four times their salaries to secure a property.

The CML says that the average mortgage for first-time buyers in London has now reached £212,000 – a new record for first-time mortgage applicants.

The CML also revealed that nearly two-thirds of first-time buyers have had to pay more than £250,000 for a home, compared with the national average of 17% of homebuyers who pay £250,000 for a property.

The increase covers the second quarter of the year to June – traditionally, spring and summer are the peak season for buying and selling homes, with increased competition among buyers fuelling escalating house prices.

However, online estate agent Rightmove also reported slight falls in London house prices in June – and suggested this was because buyers were refusing to be panicked into paying over-inflated prices for London homes.

The CML says, however, that in the second quarter to June, first-time buyers were found to be borrowing 3.9 times their salaries – compared with 3.83 times their income in the quarter to March 2014 and the average figure of 3.46 times a salary across the rest of the country.

The housing charity Shelter has said that, because of escalating house prices, renters are also feeling the impact by having to compete for affordable rental properties. Many rental tenants are also living in poor conditions and are failing to tackle landlords over essential repairs to their homes through fear of being evicted if they complain about disrepair.

The Cabinet Member for Planning, Transportation and Recycling for Hillingdon Council, Keith Burrows, said that the council took the issue of poor accommodation on the rental market – such as beds in sheds – “very seriously”.

“… we will not sit by and watch rogue landlords making an illegal profit by offering such pitiful accommodation,” Cllr Burrows said.

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For expert legal help with housing law call Duncan Lewis housing solicitors on 020 7923 4020.

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