housing | Voice of London

Nov272018 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

Landlords boycott housing and homelessness charity Shelter

The Landlords Alliance, a newly formed landlord association “fighting against onerous tax and harmful, unnecessary regulations”, has set its sights on Shelter, a housing and homelessness charity. Larry Sweeney, founder and CEO of the Landlords Alliance, has advocated a boycott of companies including Marks & Spencer and B&Q due to their fundraising support of Shelter, which he claims are the instigators of a “huge wave of negativity” in the media towards landlords. Speaking to the Voice of London, Sweeney said: “there’s more in the media about bad landlords than there are about drug dealers and paedophiles,” going on to say that “[Shelter] is not a homeless charity, it doesn’t house anybody.” Shelter is a registered charity no. 263710 in England & Wales, and no. SC0

Dec122017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

London student quits uni house for a boat

Featured, Society

Being a student in London is tough. Sure there’s the nightlife, restaurants, galleries and more - but how are you supposed to enjoy any of it when you’ve got no money? Back in 2010, the NUS published figures indicating that the average annual cost of living for a student in London was £13,388. And with inflation, this number will only have gone up. So what did UCL student Claude De Rijke-Thomas do when the contract for his student house in Camden expired back in June? Naturally, he started renting a boat. “Everyone from the house had different ideas and different budgets so, and this sounds really strange and crazy, I kind of wanted to live either on a boat or up a tree.” De Rijke Thomas said, enthusiastically, “I do a lot of climbing so I thought it might be feasible living in

Nov272017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

When a house is not the aim but the means

Society

The lack of affordable houses in London left many looking for different kinds of accommodation. Living as a guardian seems to be the ideal solution for some noisy (and penniless) musicians. We, millennials, have been accused of not caring enough about the future, that we don’t save for a house, that we should stop eating sandwiches in coffee shops and start saving money now to buy a house in ten years’ time. But is it crossing anyone’s mind that we live a life that neither consists of saving nor of spending money because we just don’t earn enough? House prices seem to be going down, or at least that is what has been said by property agencies. But, when we talk about finances nothing is really so straightforward and a few words may change the whole story. House prices are not going do

Oct222017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

Government to explore how to make home buying “less stressful”

Society

New rules could be put into place as the Government looks for ways to make house buying easier. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has launched an investigation that will collect evidence from estate agents, mortgage lenders and solicitors, in an attempt to make the process “cheaper, faster and less stressful.” Some issues that will be explored are: ways to tackle ‘gazumping’, a technique used by sellers to accept the highest offer to the detriment of the buyer building “trust and confidence” between buyer and seller, with schemes such as the ‘lock-in agreements’, where the two parties agree to ‘lock’ themselves into negotiations encouraging buyers and sellers to collect information in advance so homes are “sale ready” innovating the house buying process by making more i