Hansard

I congratulate Patrick Harvie on bringing the issue to the chamber. My first job out of university was as a welfare adviser at Edinburgh University Students Association. Day in and day out I dealt with students complaining about their landlords. A huge amount of that time was spent advising students about their rights as tenants and what to expect. I could tell members countless stories about students’ experiences, such as a £15 fee for a light bulb that was not replaced and a £5 fee for the egg cup that never existed—small things that constantly irritated, combined with bigger issues around deposits and failure to get them back.

In many ways, landlords were chancing their arm. They would take just enough off the deposit for the student not to complain any further because it was not worth their while to go to court or to complain any further; landlords could slice £100 to £150 off a deposit without having to worry about the tenants taking it any further.

There is a great deal of ignorance in the student community about their rights as tenants. We set up a service for students—they could take their lease to the advice place where we worked and get it checked before they signed it so that we could highlight the terms and conditions that they were signing up to. Few people used that service—few people knew that it existed, as important as the work that we were doing was.

We were able to do some serious work in respect of bad landlords who were operating in Edinburgh at the time. One particular company had a third of the market share of all private rented flats in Edinburgh back in 2004-05. It had a particularly bad record in how it dealt with students. I see Marco Biagi nodding—I think that he knows which company I am talking about, although I am not brave enough to name it in the chamber. However, we managed to mobilise students by empowering them about their rights and empowering them about their options to come together and take on that company. We ran a campaign specifically against that letting agent and we forced it to change its ways.

That campaign turned into a pilot of the landlord accreditation scheme in Edinburgh. We had good practice by landlords recognised with a charter and with a badge that they could wear to say that they were good landlords. We then got the EUSA to accept adverts only from accredited landlords. Suddenly, the bad landlords were unable to advertise to students. We used the power of the students coming together collectively and organising to effect change and to make things better for them.

I acknowledge that the private rented sector is not just for students. As Marco Biagi said, in Edinburgh, in particular, we are talking about a very diverse mix of people including a lot of young professionals, migrants and people moving out of homelessness into private rented sector accommodation.

I remember legislation that was designed in Parliament to protect tenants being used against the very people whom it was supposed to protect. In 2006, we were still campaigning against housing in multiple occupation quotas when people in local authorities were trying to use the legislation that was designed to protect tenants to limit the number of properties in Edinburgh in which young people could live. That just forced up rents for people who could least afford to pay.

We must ensure that, when we create new systems, they do not have unintended consequences that increase the amount of money that people have to pay, or which damage their rights. I am already hearing cases of people having to pay holding fees as well as deposits, so landlords are working their way around the legislation in different ways.

Ten years on, things are better. We have a tenancy deposit scheme, but there are other challenges. As other members have mentioned, the private rented sector has doubled in size in the past 10 years, so we perhaps need to think about how housing here will evolve in the future. Many people do not want to own a home, but want secure tenure that does not involve ownership. When can we, in this chamber, think about long-term leases whereby people can have access to a flat that is theirs for a long period without living in fear of being turfed out? In Edinburgh, people often sign a six-month lease that then rolls on for two or three months until the landlord kicks them out in July so that they can lease the flat out for festival rents and then re-market it in September. The landlord wins, time and again.

Perhaps we can think about new and creative ways of allowing people to have long leases and continue to rent, so that they can enjoy the fabulous city of Edinburgh as they want, without being exploited by landlords.

17:37