Experiences of Security Among the Last Secure Tenants in the UK

In the UK an activist called Helen Holdsworth protected ‘thousands of often elderly, private tenants’ in rent-controlled accommodation from 'being targeted by developers’ (Levy 2006). Before she died in 2006, she founded The Campaign for Fairer Fair Rents, which fought against the extortionate rent increases that forced regulated tenants to leave their homes, and successfully campaigned for the government’s 1999 maximum fair rent order. Regulated (or secure) tenants are those in the UK private rental sector (PRS) that have been renting their homes from before 15 January 1989, their rent is capped, and they are protected from no fault eviction. Given the date of deregulation, these renters are an older demographic in the UK. Using in depth interviews from some of the last secure tenants (of which there are estimated to be less than 75,000) I explore both the implications of this security, including experiences of harassment or neglect from landlords waiting for tenants to die, and the strength of secure tenancies to challenge corrupt landlords and create lifelong homes. Given the reducing number of these renters, now is the time to explore how resistance, activism and mobilisation (or lack of it) has occurred since Holdsworth’s landmark campaign. I will also be drawing on global comparisons of housing precarity and regulation in the PRS. This research develops new knowledge about security in relation to housing tenure and contends that in-depth research on the lived experiences of those in the last secure tenancies should be central to discussion about future controls and how they might work in practice. In doing do, this paper advocates for an alliance between private renters suffering housing precarity and older regulated tenants holding on to their rent-controlled homes.