Inside the group targeting rogue estate agents in London
"We used to be told renters were homeowners in waiting. That's no longer the case"
Morning — just when it seemed London rent couldn’t get any worse, it did. At the end of last year, data from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the average rent hike in the city in 2024 was 11.5%. It’s the highest annual rise on record, and puts average rent in the capital past £2,100. The hike is far above the 6.4% average pay rise Londoners saw in the same period.
Of course, London rent has been unaffordable for ages. So long, in fact, that it’s generated a new breed of tenant activists in the city. Specifically, in 2018, a loose collection of housing campaigners decided it was time to band together and formed the London Renters Union. They agreed on a mission: to go after rogue landlords and estate agents in the capital, and to push for wider changes in the law.
Today we’re bringing you a piece by writer Tom Duggins, who’s recently been going along to LRU meetings to learn more about its members and tactics. Key to the LRU’s approach is a steady drumbeat of naming, shaming, and then action. Their targets range from those overseeing the worst excesses of the private rented sector — landlords and letting agents — to those who are, on paper at least, meant to be providing more affordable options — London’s borough councils and housing associations.
But in 2025, the LRU is at something of a juncture. On the one hand, the new national government is more sympathetic to its cause. A bill offering greater protections for tenants is currently making its way through Parliament. On the other, with a relatively small membership of 7,000 in a city where millions are gouged by rent, there are questions over how far the LRU’s organising can go.
Tom’s inside look at the London Renters Union is below.
Six years in, is the London Renters Union making a difference?
By Tom Duggins
The Old Spotted Dog clubhouse near Forest Gate is decorated with messages of support for the marginalised. Scarves and decals that express a belief in the power of community and a rejection of discrimination are all over the walls. It’s the home of the fan-owned, explicitly anti-fascist Clapton Community Football Club. But it also provides a space for regular branch meetings of the Newham & Leytonstone wing of the London Renters Union (LRU).
On a Monday evening in January around 40 people are gathered in the room; rice and curry are being served from behind the bar and members are sitting down to eat with one another. When the time comes to officially convene, someone stands up to offer a reminder of the union’s guiding principle: “We don’t do any charity, only solidarity.”
Set up in 2018 by a coalition of different housing groups, the LRU has from the beginning set out to voice a shared sense of anger over London’s housing crisis and demand change. “The question that started things was: how can private renters build power?” says Bekah Hesse, an LRU co-convenor. “And the answer was: start a renters union.” The group has since grown to about 7,000 members across its six branches, having established a strong base of people who are representative of renters in their local area.
But the LRU does more than just voice renter anger — it directs it at specific landlords, estate agents, councils and housing associations across the capital in defence of tenants. On December 19, LRU members descended on the Holborn headquarters of one of London’s biggest estate agents, Foxtons, to protest the company’s role in “skyrocketing” rents in developments at Seven Sisters and Elephant & Castle. A few months prior, the LRU were outside Brent town hall to protest against the council turning a blind eye to unaffordable new builds in the borough, particularly around Wembley Park.
Sometimes the LRU draws MPs into the fray, as it did in Walthamstow at the end of last year. The union posted a screenshot of an email from the estate agents Stow Brothers that seemed to show the company saying it did not accept tenants on housing benefits — a potential breach of the law. After alerting local MP Stella Creasy, the LRU was issued with a response from a Stow Brothers spokesperson that said the email “was mistakenly sent by a trainee” and had “resulted from a misunderstanding”. In other cases, the LRU has directly negotiated on behalf of renters, such as those at Evelyn Court in Hackney, where the union represented tenants of 220 flats to win a schedule of repairs from the estate manager, the housing association IDS.
But organising targeted action is only one part of the equation for the LRU. Equally important is its network of members who raise the alarm about rogue actors, usually resulting from their own experience of renting in London.
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