You know you’re in trouble when they bring the Lawyers in, just as the Law Commissions first statement on the reform of `Tenancy Law` states `Renting Homes is Big Business`. In an unprecedented report to Parliament it argues present `Housing Tenure Law` should be scraped in favour of a `Single Social Occupation Contract`.

The occupation contract will supersede all existing tenancy law; being replaced by two types of contract (Secure & Standard) which we are being assured will closely resemble the present models used now by local authority and private owner.

Demand for this `Single Social Occupation Contract` comes on the heels of local authority privatisation of its housing stock (ALMO, Transfer, PFI) and as a consequence reconciling the differences between private and social tenure is said to have become blurred.

What are not blurred are the consequences if this legislation should pass into Law. As of now a tenant of the council is more or less recognised as the owner of their home, protected by a 500 hundred year history of hard fought for legislation protecting the poor from the likes of Peter Rachman ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rachman ).

The single social occupation contract as a departure from the socially provisioned contract serviced by government, gives into the corporate ideology in which its survival is over and above that of the rights of its tenants. Housing Associations profits run into the billions, yet there are still stories of unjust evictions even under the pretence of claiming to be a charity and receiving benefits thereof.

This Bill needs to be stopped in its tracks now, as it relegates the tenant’s home to being a consumer item. To be got rid of if it doesn’t make a profit, to be sold on when at the whim of gentrification it will penalise the working class further. There can be no negotiations, only the spilling of the blood of the new barons that consorts to rob the tenant again of any security or safety of a decent home.



The Law Commission; Renting Homes
 http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/renting_homes.htm

Summary of the final report
 http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/docs/lc297_summary.pdf

Renting Homes; The final Report
 http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/docs/lc297_vol1.pdf