Private Rented Sector Charter

Our vision for Islington's private rented sector

We believe that everyone deserves to have a home that is safe, well maintained and well manged.

Islington’s private rented sector will be high quality, low carbon, affordable and sustainable so that Islington’s residents have a good choice of quality homes in clean, safe, and vibrant neighbourhoods and landlords meet their obligations to their tenants.

What we aim to do for private renters

Improve property and management standards

Target and focus intervention and proactive enforcement on the very worst properties, landlords and agents and on improvement of neighbourhoods. Work together across the council and with partners to improve standards.

Increase opportunities in the sector for low income households

Reduce the gap in quality between low and middle-income options for housing, so that those on lower incomes have greater access and more choice.

Improve communication across the sector

Increase awareness of landlord, agent and tenant responsibilities, share good practice and give relevant professional bodies a bigger role to help make sure standards are met at all levels of the market.

Charter principles

We want to emphasise the following principles as part of this charter.

Homes for people and not profit

• Work within the planning system to promote all new residential developments that deliver the maximum possible amount of social housing (particularly on council land), including genuinely affordable homes at social rents.
• Buy as many of Islington’s former council homes that are on the market as possible to meet urgent housing need.
• Commit to an ambitious and sustainable programme of council house building.
• Publish breakdowns on types of housing being built (social and other kinds of affordable), and share them with all residents and partners.
• Improve the quality, accessibility, and safety of temporary accommodation, and work only with temporary accommodation providers that have decent, habitable and warm homes. Work with all partners and residents to develop an action plan for improving temporary accommodation standards, including how to resource the plan.
• Ensure people with disabilities can stay in temporary accommodation until all adaptations are finished on their new home.
• Continue to support the Mayor of London’s call for the introduction of rent controls to keep rents as affordable as possible.
• Work towards ending automatic evictions for rent arrears and abolish no-fault evictions.
• Empower and work in partnership with private rented sector tenants.
• Promote a legally binding 'decent homes' standard.
• Promote the abolition of no-fault evictions.

Hold landlords accountable

• Extend the landlord licensing scheme as much as possible to ensure local people can enjoy safe, decent, secure homes, whoever their landlord is, and continue to lobby Government to allow us to extend it further.
• Make engagement with relevant professional bodies easier.
• Work in partnership with landlords to address damp and mould and work towards introducing the 'decent homes' standard across all private rented properties.
• Have an enforcement policy which sets out that inspections and fines will be used as a deterrent against landlords who don’t provide safe and decent accommodation.

Work with and support renters

• Regularly meet with the National Residential Landlords Association (RNLA), the London Renters Union (LRU), Renters’ Rights London, Acorn, and other tenant groups and private rented sector landlords, and commit to an ongoing culture of transparency and accessibility.
• Work in partnership with the NRLA, the LRU, Renters’ Rights London, Acorn, private landlords and private sector tenants to expand public awareness of renters’ rights.
• Make sure our own housing advice, assistance and support is clear and easy to access. We will use translated and accessible materials and consult charities that work with ethnic minorities to reach as many people as possible.
• Promote independent advice and assistance through Shelter, Islington Law Centre and community-based advice agencies.
• We will give support through in person interviews, Microsoft Teams and Zoom (video software) meetings, email, telephone and online advice, assistance.
• Promote the right for private rented sector tenants to have pets, to make reasonable alterations to a property, and introduce a four-month notice period for landlords.
• Work to create a national register of landlords, a legally binding 'decent homes' standard, and examine schemes to make tenancy deposits more portable.
• We will work with private rented sector tenants to introduce this new charter and a new 'decent homes' standard across Islington.
• Work in partnership with private renters and private rented sector landlords across Islington to actively reduce the incidence of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in our neighbourhoods to improve the quality of life for everyone.
• Encourage private rented sector tenants to join private rented sector groups and unions.
• Promote respect for tenant privacy and insist on advance notice of visits by landlords.

No borders in housing

• Pledge that there will be no collaboration between our work enforcing housing standards and the Home Office or Border Force.