Scotland’s housing emergency will worsen without rent controls – Green Party

Scotland’s housing emergency will worsen without rent controls – Green Party

0:02 AM, 7th January 2025, About A day ago 9

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Scotland’s housing emergency will worsen in 2025 without rent controls, the Green Party says.

Along with ‘robust’ rent controls, the Greens also demanded last month that tenants should be protected ‘permanently’ from eviction in the winter months.

Also, rent controls would protect tenants from ‘skyrocketing rents’.

The party says that homes are ‘not for profiteering’ and more effort must be made to bring empty homes back into use.

Housing emergency getting worse

Green MSP Maggie Chapman said: “If real rent control measures are not put in place, I am worried that we will see the housing emergency getting even worse, with tenants forced out of their homes.

“There must be justice for renters who face insecure tenancies due to soaring costs and are being forced to shoulder the financial burden so their landlords can profit.”

She adds: “The government’s current proposals for this bill would enshrine perpetual rent increases into law and undermine local authorities’ ability to protect tenants by preventing them from bringing rents down.”

Rent controls must be enforced

Ms Chapman says that rent controls are fundamental to ‘building a fairer and better housing system’ for Scots – and controls must be enforced this year.

The Greens point to ‘eye-watering rent’ rises and an average rent for a one-bedroom property reaching £710 per month.

A two-bedroom home costs around £893 per month and the Scottish Government must ‘bring forward as robust a Housing Bill as possible this year’.

Homes should not be for profiteering

Ms Chapman said: “Homes should be for living in, not for profiteering. They are not luxurious, nice to have extras in life.

“They are necessary, vital spaces. Everyone has the right to have access to a warm, safe, secure, affordable place to call home whether they own or rent the property.”

She added: “When this Housing Bill was introduced it promised protection for tenants, redefining housing as a human right.

“It gave hope to many struggling while relying on the private rented sector for a place to call home here in Scotland.

“This must be the year that we begin to repair our broken housing system.”


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Jiten Karia

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10:19 AM, 7th January 2025, About 19 hours ago

What a load of hot air. . It's been proven rental controls don't work in many parts of tbe world and landlords are only supplying due to government own failures and targets. Uncontrollable immigration. Bad government management are the causes and devil here not landlords.

L Bennett

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10:28 AM, 7th January 2025, About 19 hours ago

Tenants should be protected from eviction during winter months? How about they pay their rent in winter months. And all year.

dismayed landlord

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10:34 AM, 7th January 2025, About 19 hours ago

None as blind as those who refuse to see!

dismayed landlord

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10:36 AM, 7th January 2025, About 19 hours ago

You can show the horse the water but you cannot make it drink it!

Freda Blogs

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10:59 AM, 7th January 2025, About 18 hours ago

“Ms Chapman said: “Homes should be for living in, not for profiteering. They are not luxurious, nice to have extras in life.

They are necessary, vital spaces. Everyone has the right to have access to a warm, safe, secure, affordable place to call home whether they own or rent the property.”

Yep. So you go right ahead Ms Chapman and provide the required housing with all the controls and restrictions you like.

Just don’t expect private LLs to supply them, with the attendant risks and low financial returns you are promoting through your proposals. Since when were private individuals responsible for housing all and sundry, even if that’s at a personal and financial cost to themselves?

You’ve got your soundbite, now go and get yourself educated on how the market works - or should work - when people like you stop meddling.

Cider Drinker

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13:51 PM, 7th January 2025, About 15 hours ago

Only an idiot would increase the cost of supplying a home and expect rents to fall. Enter the Green Party. Green by name and green by nature.
If people want the right to a nice home, they also have the right to work for it. I did.
I have worked more hours in my 45 years of employment than 4 of my tenants will work combined.
I will not feel guilty about acquiring rental properties. The government of the day encouraged it.
I’ll sell when the time is right. Keep bashing landlords and I will evict my tenants in order to sell. That time is getting closer with every idiot that gets a sound bite into the public domain.
I like my tenants but I will not be held to ransom just because I wish to test them with respect.

dismayed landlord

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15:10 PM, 7th January 2025, About 14 hours ago

Hear hear. ! Done it and almost out. The feeling of relief is amazing!

David100

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15:15 PM, 7th January 2025, About 14 hours ago

Nothing to stop the Green party from buying those "empty homes" and fixing them up to "bring them back into use" it should be easy right? Especially if they do it as a non profit. EXCEPT, they only want to spend other peoples money, and are clueless lefties who couldn't run a business to save themselves.

dismayed landlord

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15:40 PM, 7th January 2025, About 14 hours ago

There you go! Easy but they want it all on plate with no liability and no responsibility!

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