Against Landlords

Britain has become a nation of renters and landlords, and building more housing is not the solution. In his radical new interpretation of the housing crisis, lawyer Nick Bano proposes that it is rent, not house prices, that is at the core of the problem. Despite economic boom and bust, why has the cost of housing continued to skyrocket since the 1970s? Bano argues that rents have also continued to rise—supported by housing benefit payments and weakening housing laws on evictions. The state has colluded with the market as social housing provision has been replaced by payments, spiralling ever higher.

A Crisis by Design shows that a permanent crisis is not a happenstance of global economics or political incompetence, but has been engineered on purpose. Such a crisis has resulted in the fire at Grenfell and widespread precarity for renters. Bano also shows that this is not just a London problem but can be seen across the country, and that it is inherently racist in nature. It instils anxiety and inequality to maintain ever-increasing profits.

Bano's radical diagnosis shows why the solutions prescribed by diverse experts have gone wrong, and what we should do about it. It is firstly a problem of the law, and this demands immediate reform to questions of property and land values. Then, policy: the laws concerning renting and landlordism. Finally, it is a question of supply: where to build and who for.