Liverpool Residents' Action

18/05/2026

New Section 21 Rights! Please read our detailed blog post on how to resist Section 21 evictions https://lraction.uk/section21rights

"LRAction are aware that many Liverpool landlords in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) have served “NO FAULT” (Section 21/S.21) eviction notices on residents in Liverpool and across England, before 1st May 2026. May 1st was the date when the Labour Cabinet finally decided to outlaw them, despite passing legislation some time ago they delayed the “NO FAULT” ban, giving landlords months’ to prepare for the changes and issue these last minute “no fault” evictions, putting all private renters at risk of homelessness."

04/06/2025

This is a great way to meet other members, get involved in some of the most pressing housing issues in the city, and come up with a campaign together.

This Sunday, 8th June 2025, 4pm to 7pm (and socialising after), at Granby Winter Garden Garden, L8 2UW.

Come to our workshop, open to members and friends.

Help choose a campaign we can rally around!

Bring campaign ideas that are local to your neighbourhood and/or Liverpool.

Is there something local to you you’re passionate about that no one else is campaigning on?

Is there something affecting the whole city that you think we are missing?

Discuss campaign ideas, together choose what we should be taking action on!

More details in members' email inboxes!

https://lraction.uk/campaign-co-creation-day/

08/05/2025

Free event, please join us on 23rd May, 6:30pm for 7pm start, accessible venue, Black Lodge Brewery, 3 Kings Dock Street, L1 8JU.

We are excited to be in conversation with Tracy Rosenthal, author & co-founder of Los Angeles Tenants Union to launch and discuss their book Abolish Rent.

Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice.

Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. Written for anyone fed up with the permanent housing crisis, complicit politicians, and real estate greed, Abolish Rent dissects our housing system from the perspective of those it immiserates. Through unsparing analysis and striking stories of resistance, it shows us how tenants can, through organizing and collective action, harness our power and win the housing we deserve.

From two co-founders of the largest tenants union in the country, this deeply reported account of the resurgent tenant movement centers poor and working-class people who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line. These are the seeds of the revolutionary movement we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home.

Categories events Abolish Rent Post author By lractionuk Post date May 8, 2025 Free event, please join us on 23rd May, 6:30pm for 7pm start, accessible venue, Black Lodge Brewery, 3 Kings Dock Street, L1 8JU. We are excited to be in conversation with Tracy Rosenthal, author & co-founder of Los Angel...

04/04/2025

On Rent Caps and Local Housing Allowance Freeze

We welcome the research from Crisis and Zoopla on the growing disparity between rents and the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) published this week. We too recognise, and personally experience, the panic felt amongst private sector tenants dealing with unaffordable rent hikes as the LHA rates are now frozen again from April 1st. We agree that the disparity between rents and the LHA amount is scandalous.

It is clear that it is a huge factor in the increase in homelessness as private renters face eviction due to rent arrears as their rents raise way beyond wages, this is an issue that will not be addressed by the end of section 21 and is not addressed at all by the current iteration of the Renters Rights Bill (RRB).

We also agree that successive Governments’ negligence since the LHA calculation was slashed in 2011, from being aligned to the bottom 50% of rents to the bottom 30%, has contributed to the current situation. Only 2.7% of private rents across England are within LHA rates, and less than 5% in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). Politicians’ decision to allow this disparity to increase, by freezing the LHA, and failing to consider the impact this is having and has had on renters and homelessness is a catastrophic failure.

A solution to this crisis cannot be complete without the introduction of properly formulated rent caps and controls.

The ONS has confirmed that rents have increased by 8.1% in the year to January alone, outstripping inflation by 6 percentage points and 2.5% ahead of wage growth. We agree that this is unmanageable, and agree that a social housing program must be part of the solution. However we are certain that no discussion on homelessness, private renting or the financial crisis our country faces is complete without an urgent and robust discussion on rent caps and rent controls.

It cannot be the case that renters and their supporters and representatives do the work of the private landlord class by lobbying for ever increasing amounts of public money to be handed to private landlords directly from the public purse and for the increases in these payments to be tied only to the rents landlords wish to charge and “market forces”.

If we are going to agree that housing benefits are required to keep people in their homes and that these benefits must be linked to “real rents” then we must also surely agree that these costs must be capped and controlled.

The RRB purports to offer solutions to this crisis, however we see nothing which will provide any better protection than the current system which allows only for rent increases within a tenancy to be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal and only when they are arguably inconsistent with market rents.

Without caps and controls on increases between tenancies, and with a fair rents system measured only against market rents, rather than against any fair and independently calculated metric, rents will continue to rise and the cost to ourselves, the public, along with it. The charity Shelter provided policy and international evidence on rent caps and controls during the last general election, why doesn’t the RRB include rent caps and controls?

Rent caps and controls are essential to stabilise the cruel and unpredictable situation that people find themselves trapped in. Successive governments have consistently ignored campaigners and protected the profits of the landlord class for decades. What does that say about them?

Categories statement On Rent Caps and Local Housing Allowance Freeze Post author By lractionuk Post date April 4, 2025 We welcome the research from Crisis and Zoopla on the growing disparity between rents and the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) published this week. We too recognize, and personally exp...

30/03/2025

The current Labour government has made the indefensible choice to further worsen the lives of the most vulnerable. The planned cuts to Personal Independence Payments, Universal Credit and Carer’s Allowance are a disgrace to the people they are elected to serve.

While it is increasingly clear that many MPs have no background in the labour and social movements that seek to empower people who the system fails, their offices will have heard in no uncertain terms the detrimental impact that austerity 2.0 will have on millions of people. The inhumanity of those who hold power in this country is in plain view for us all to see.

The Labour government is spending its time pandering to lobbyists and punishing those least able to advocate for themselves. If they continue down this path, they will be responsible for the death and despair that follows. The government’s own figures claim that 250,000 people, including 50,000 children will be pushed into poverty; figures from the Joseph Rowntree foundation argue this figure is closer to 400,000 people.

If the government cared about inequality it would be implementing taxes on the wealthiest, who continue to extract unfathomable levels of wealth from our communities. A wealth tax of just 2% on assets over £10 million would raise £24 billion per year.

When this government claims it must cut welfare or social spending, it is not because of real financial necessity. It is because they prioritise the interests of the ruling class. These cuts are yet another redistribution of wealth upwards. This government seeks to weaken the social safety net so that workers are more dependent on their employers, less likely to organise, and more easily replaced.

If the government really wanted to make ‘savings’ in their budget, then we suggest they look at the projected £70 billion that will be spent on local housing allowance between 2024-2029 which goes straight into the pockets of private landlords. We are years into a chronic housing shortage yet the government has made no attempt to address the fact that unaffordability underpins this crisis. Introducing rent controls, and investing in council housing, would not only save a significant amount of public money in the short and long term, more importantly it would improve the living standards of millions.

We are acutely aware that many of our members across the city will be paralysed with fear following the decisions announced this week. If you need us, please reach out, it’s up to us to continue to look after one another. Please also support movements such as Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and ensure your MP has heard your voice.

For housing issues, please email us at [email protected], detailing the broad nature of your issue and your contact details. We offer free casework for a range of issues including disrepair, threat of homelessness, discrimination or harassment from landlords/agents, observing at landlord inspections or council compliance visits, rent increases, deposit issues, eviction notices and support for holding landlords to account.

Categories statement Response to Labour’s announcement of welfare cuts Post author By lractionuk Post date March 30, 2025 This statement was released on instagram, bluesky, and twitter. Facebook has a post which links back to this article which has been reproduced here and includes sources. We app...

07/03/2025

For International Women's Day 2025 join Liverpool Sisterhood tomorrow, marching from the Bombed Out Church. More information on their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liverpoolsisterhood/

23/02/2025

03/02/2025

Blue Labour is not the answer.

PoliticsHome has recently featured Blue Labour, chaired by Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, who explains to them. “I'm not scared of the term Blue Labour.” He does not mind the term “socially conservative” either, he adds, because “progressive politics” has threatened communities. “It's challenged the value of long-standing institutions, from trade unions to churches.”

Carden risks being toppled by the left, not the right, in this city who are disappointed and angry to see a Labour MP, in what was previously the safest seat in the city, throw his constituency under the bus in this way.

We know that identity politics is just a distraction tactic, so does Carden.

Division in this city comes from a politics of scarcity, people living in very deprived conditions, as they do in Walton. This is a direct consequence of the decisions made by consecutive governments,continued and unchallenged by this current Labour government.

It's hardly worth touching on the embarrassing point made about unions because we cannot believe Carden thinks any of his constituency would believe that anything other than Thatcher's government deliberately crushed the unions.

Watch Strike: An Uncivil War for details of exactly how she did this, systematically, for years.

Carden got 86% of his constituency in 2017, 85% in 2019, then lost 8,500+ votes in 2024 and dropped to 71%.

Still a huge majority and not an entirely reliable metric, but Walton was won over by an offer to improve material conditions, then a portion were lost by a move away from this.

These are the people you are letting down and need to win back, not a room full of billionaires in a men's club you've built for them.

Liverpool Residents Action is a grassroots organisation that aims to help and represent the interests of residents in the city with their housing needs. Membership is free. To join, head to lraction.uk/join-lra

22/01/2025

We've got a date for our next in-person meeting where we'll be discussing some of our up and coming plans including response to the Renter's (Reform) Rights Bill, some options for community engagement events and our recently established casework policies for those coming to us for help with housing issues.

Tuesday 28th January 2025

DoES Liverpool
1st Floor, The Tapestry
68-76 Kempston Street
Liverpool L3 8HL

7pm - 9pm

Look forward to seeing you all and making some decisions about where our capacity is best spent in the coming months! This is an accessible venue.

Please feel free to use the group chat, access the diary or reply to this email to add any agenda items.

16/12/2024

If you've joined LRAction recently or in the past few months we sent out an email late last week with welcome information!

Please check your spam/junk folders as we think past emails may have been deleted!