Tenant’s Union UK, formed by Laurence Elliott, is aimiing to fight back against unscrupulous landlords.
Tenant’s Union is formed out of Greater Manchester Housing Action, which describes itself as a coalition of individuals, communities, charities and workers unions, attempting to challenge the housing crisis that has formed in Greater Manchester.
Tenant’s Union held the first of many events last night at The Klondyke building on Burnage Range, Manchester. There, Elliott and others gave talks to give an introduction to the program, as well as begin to explain how to defend against a section 21 notice, which is the most common eviction notice.
Event organiser Laurence Elliot told Quays News:
“We asked about and we found the most worrying thing for people is a section 21 notice, the most common one. So the meeting was about how to defend against an eviction notice, what strategies you should use but also when it is invalid. So many are and so many landlords know that tenants don’t understand what it all means.”
The aim of the ongoing events will be to increase tenant’s ability to fight back against unfair landlords.
Laurence told us why he felt the need to create Tenant’s Union:
“I founded it because I was moving from one property to another where one landlord wouldn’t give me back my deposit after chasing him for three months, and the next landlord wouldn’t clean the property when we’d asked him too and tricked us into moving into the property.. so he could tie us to that property.”
“That’s the thing with tenant’s, you don’t have a lot of power – or that’s how it seems.”
Tenant’s Union UK are also developing an app to help young people get to grips with letting, including a service where the company will track down landlords and attempt to get money back over any wrong-doings, automatically. Laurence told us he also wants the aop to be able to read through contracts and decode the often confusing language used within.
Upcoming events include an introduction into Renters Rights, on November 11th 2-5pm at Manchester Central Hall on Oldham Street and, eventually, a tenant’s forum, where tenant’s will get the oppurtuinity to speak to Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham one-on-one.
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