Campaigners launch new guide to help private tenants know their rights and responsibilities

Home Sweet Home campaigners launch a tenant’s guide to renting with the Brighton Students Union and the Residential Landlords Association.

Home Sweet Home is a community campaign to improve private rented sector housing in Brighton and Hove.

Last night leaders from the campaign came together at Brighton Students Union to launch a new tenants guide to better inform students of their rights as tenants.

The guide emerged from a long period of research by campaigners into what tenants felt were the most important issues that they faced in privately rented housing. One of the most pressing concerns that came out this research was that, most often, tenants felt they did not know their rights, their responsibilities, or what levels of service to expect and what to look out for when renting a home. This was especially true amongst student renters, many of whom were living alone for the first time in their lives.

As part of the launch, leaders shared their stories and experiences of living in poor private accommodation in Brighton and Hove, and why they got involved in the campaign to change things for the better.

Home Sweet Home leader Chris Henry, said: “Tonight has been great to see the strength of support that the campaign has gathered, and it’s great to know we have so many people behind us as we take the campaign for better private rented accommodation forward in the future.”

People from across the city also got up to pledge their support for Home Sweet Home and what the campaign is trying to achieve.

Andy Winter, from Brighton Housing Trust, said: “When I heard about the work that Home Sweet Home was doing and some of the scandalous conditions they were exposing, I realised how much further we still have to go for housing in Brighton. I don’t think anyone can ignore what Home Sweet Home has done now.

“In Brighton and Hove we have some amazingly good private landlords and some real rogues, some people who are unethical, some people who really and frankly deserve to be in prison for the conditions that they let their homes in.”

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Hove and Portslade Peter Kyle, added: “Having gone through a similar experience at my time at university living in substandard housing, I regret bitterly that I didn’t do something about it at the time and that I wasn’t involved and working alongside other people and other students in the same position to try and make a difference, and that’s the extraordinary thing that’s happening here today and that’s really inspiring”

Gary Waller from the Southern Landlords Association, said: “I’m very aware that there is a lot of poor standards of property in the town. We suffer particularly from landlords who have looked at property investments as a way of making money in an era of poor pension returns, poor interest rate returns and people have piled into Brighton Let property as a way of enhancing their returns.

“I believe landlords can make good money out of student accommodation and provide good quality accommodation at the same time

“I fully support everything that HSH is doing and as an association the Southern Landlords association fully support improving standards in rented accommodation in Brighton”

Chris McDermott from the University of Sussex Chaplaincy, concluded: “I’ve been keenly interested to support the students and their campaign to pressure landlords and estate agents to actually adopt more transparent and fair practices

“Having housing that is up to standard, housing that is provided with fairness and transparency on the part of the agents and landlords, echoes the core of your wellbeing. If you’re living in a situation where houses and physical structures are being neglected, you’re discovering hidden charges you weren’t expecting, deposits are being kept – that so utterly demoralising and so devastating to one’s own sense of wellbeing”