Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Spain blocks more than 65,000 Airbnb holiday rental listings
Inti Landauro Reuters (No paywall)Spain has ordered Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab to withdraw more than 65,000 listings for holiday rentals which it said violated existing rules from its platform as part of a general crackdown on a business blamed for contributing to the housing crisis in the country. Most of the Airbnb listings to be blocked do not include their licence number, while others do not specify whether the owner was an individual or a corporation, the Consumer Rights Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spains-consumer-rights-mini…
# Must read International, .Britain’s broken housing system means living inside a sick joke
Eloise Hendy The Independent (No paywall)A fortnight ago, my partner and I asked to renew our tenancy. In reply, the property manager prompted us to “confirm” how much more rent we could “comfortably afford” – because, of course, tenants must be responsible for fluctuations in the housing market, and costs must be passed on to them. We said that there was no increase we could “comfortably afford”, and now we’re waiting – to see if we can stay, or if we’ll be priced out. Anyone whose home life touches the sharp edges of the housing crisis is probably intimately familiar with this kind of waiting, because the experience of dealing with both precarious labour and insecure housing is so unsteady.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/britain-housing-rent-la…
# Hot topic International, Rent.My rent has gone up £300 a month’: Pain of soaring costs and zero hours contracts
Joe Middleton The Independent (No paywall)Urwah Chaudhary is one of millions of Britons struggling with the cost of living and record-breaking rent price increases. The full-time student, who works as a call centre agent on a minimum wage and on a zero-hours contract, has faced a monthly rent increase from £900 to £1,200 in the space of a year. Inflation, the increase in prices in the rental market in her local area, and a struggle to afford the mortgage after successive Bank of England interest rate hikes, were the reasons given by her landlord for the hefty additional monthly outlay.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rent-prices-cost…
# Hot topic International, .Lawsuits test Airbnb’s alleged liability in carbon monoxide deaths
Jenna Greene Reuters (No paywall)Sebastian Mejia died in the shower of an Airbnb rental in Brazil in 2022, the alleged victim, opens new tab of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty water heater. A Fulbright scholar, the 24-year-old Florida native was studying the country’s indigenous communities. That same year, an American woman staying at an Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab in Croatia allegedly shared his fate, as did a trio of American tourists at an Airbnb in Mexico City, a man on a work trip to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and a Loyola Marymount graduate student at an Airbnb in Guadalajara in late 2021, court records show.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-lawsuits-test-ai…
# Must read International, Rent, Security and safety.West Auckland tenants ordered to pay for fire damage after rubbish blaze
Hannah Bartlett NZ Herald (No paywall)A tenant had no explanation for a rubbish fire at the West Auckland house she rented, which caused damage to windows and weatherboards, other than to suggest it was a “rough area” with “gang members” living nearby. However, the landlords suggested there was an obvious explanation for the fire at the Kelston house, as it happened hours after they’d emailed asking for a pile of rubbish to be removed. After the fire, Karlee Eileen Naomi Thompson and Sarge Rolly Te Tonga were taken to the Tenancy Tribunal by their landlords, who were granted name suppression, over damage caused at the rental property.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/west-auckland-tenants-ordered-to-p…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Huge vet bills forcing cash-strapped pet owners to make an impossible choice
Alana Calvert ABC (No paywall)Michael Clayton shudders when he recalls the night he came within a whisker of losing his best friend. It was two days before Christmas and his eight-year-old cat Frankie was in a bad way. He had been attacked by another cat and needed his eye urgently removed or he would have to be euthanised. The vet fee was almost $2,000 and Mr Clayton had no way to pay. "I begged them and begged them to do a payment plan and they said 'no'," he recalled. "My heart dropped. I did actually cry."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-22/vet-bills-leaving-pet-own…
# Must read Australia, .Data suggests few tenants return to Victoria’s redeveloped social housing estates
Jesse Thompson ABC (No paywall)Jeannie Erceg spent a decade on the public housing waitlist before being handed the keys to a three-bedroom flat in Melbourne's inner south. Her 24-year tenancy in the low-rise housing complex, surrounded by homely possessions and the coming and going of her seven children, would come to seem like a lifetime compared to the upheaval that took place next. Ms Erceg had to relocate so the complex could be knocked down and rebuilt. She had lived at an estate in Port Melbourne for just two years when she learned that it too would face the same fate. By early 2027, she will have moved three times in a decade.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-19/social-housing-data-tenan…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.“You go to the places you don’t want to go to”: inside the rental crisis facing older Australians
Grace Lagan Honi Soit (No paywall)Rob* calls me just after his latest rental inspection, which has thankfully gone well. “The [property manager] was actually decent, they didn’t pick on having some laundry on the couch or whatever.” He’s seen the full gamut of landlords and realtors over the years. Now in his late forties, Rob has been renting since he was 19. While he’s worked on and off, the disability pension has been his major source of income since he left home. Rob is currently living in a major regional centre in Victoria. He will be renting until he gets off a social housing waitlist, which, in his estimation, may take seven to ten years.
https://honisoit.com/2025/05/you-go-to-the-places-you-dont-want-…
# Must read Australia, Rent.