Shaheen says he will stay if the rent can go back to the level it was at two months ago. I said I would start a campaign to get a rent reduction and that lots of people want to help. He has nothing to lose by irritating the landlord/agent, so he's up for all manner of tactics. But he doesn't have a spare minute in his life (7 days a week in the shop, plus night time trips to New Covent Garden) so it's up to us to make it all happen. By 'us' I mean urban, Friends of Brixton Market (I hope
) and whoever else we can rope in. I don't speak for FBM and hope I'm not treading on anyone's toes.
The retrospective rent increase described in post #6 by fbm may have been illegal. Another tenant consulted a solicitor about it and was told he had a good chance of winning in court. But not enough tenants could be found to share the legal bill of £6,000 - £8,000, so the idea was dropped. (I'm not naming the tenant cos I don't have his permission and he may not want heat from the landlord who will read all this at some stage.)
I suspect we all feel that our objective should be not just to cut Nour's rent but to install some sort of framework to keep rents fair and affordable for all in the long term. We want to protect the social value of the market as a place where people on low incomes can buy the essentials. And we want to preserve its character. What does everyone think?
In terms of tactics, off the top of my head I'm thinking, in no particular order:
- a petition in Nour for customers and tenants to sign
- letter writing campaign to LAP, the new agent, the agent's owners, local MPs and councillors
- talk to the above solicitor and the tenant who consulted him
- Facebook group
- Twitter feed
- publish Nour's tenancy agreement and demands for rent increases online, with lawyers'/surveyors'/agents' written opinions of them. If the landlord has done something illegal perhaps this will shame him into undoing things without the cost and delay of legal action. But if the landlord wants to take it to court, publishing the docs would help raise money for a fighting fund. IANAL, but as this would be a civil case
sub judice doesn't apply until a date for a hearing is set
- interview with South London Press followed (hopefully) by national press if the campaign gains momentum
E2A - make a documentary. (An amateur docu maker is interested.)
Fighting market forces by pressuring a landlord to cut his rent may sound quixotic, but it seems to me we do have some valid arguments:
1) one of the recent rent increases may have been illegal
2) it's not in the landlord's interests to drive out tenants who attract customers from all over south London
3) it's not in the interests of other Brixton businesses or the Council for the same reason
4) given that the market building is now preserved for the community by listed building status, the tenants should also be protected by means of a fair rent scheme. Otherwise the market will become a soulless monument full of high street chains or tourist tat and its social value to the community will be diminished. Maybe there's nothing in law to impose a fair rent scheme in this scenario, but there is a sort of precedent in planning law, whereby local authorities require a portion of a new housing development to be affordable.
So what does everyone think? And who wants to do what?
Their rent is being increased massively.
