IN RESPONSE TO ‘What on Earth are You Eating?’ from issue 108 available here.

Re your article about renting. I am at the moment being evicted as the property no longer suits the landlord’s ‘portfolio or business scheme’. I’m paying £425 pm for a one bed flat. The average Hastings price is £525. Single rooms in shared accommodation are over £400 – unaffordable on a pension plus pension credit of £160 pw. So I started looking at Scotland. In Fife I could get a 2 bed flat for what I’m paying now.

I noticed another flat at £290 pm so went with that, but the estate agent asked if my monthly income is 2.5 times the months’ rent. I’m £32 short and was asked for 6 months rent. As I receive Housing Benefit and my pension is not even minimum wage, I am unable to rent privately.

In Scotland, the agents don’t charge fees. In Hastings, the fees can cost 2 month’s rent on top of 1 months’ advance and deposit. Luckily (!?) my landlord has a bedsit (or as it’s known, a ‘studio’) which I may move to. All I want to know is, if it was a Tory who came up with the equation 2.5mr = 1me? 

Regards, Stewart Petrie

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HIPLettersIN RESPONSE TO ‘What on Earth are You Eating?’ from issue 108 available here. Re your article about renting. I am at the moment being evicted as the property no longer suits the landlord’s ‘portfolio or business scheme’. I’m paying £425 pm for a one bed flat. The average Hastings price...The Hastings & St Leonards non-profit community newspaper