Campaigners challenging Lambeth Council over private lettings head to the High Court

Campaigners are heading to London’s Royal Courts of Justice on 17 June 2025 for a hearing in which a judge will decide whether a claim for Judicial Review will proceed to a full hearing. The claimant, one of potentially hundreds of tenants facing eviction across 5 Lambeth estates earmarked for demolition, is arguing Lambeth Council have been unlawfully renting homes on the private rented sector under insecure assured shorthold tenancies (‘AST’s), and have now made a decision which will see these tenants made homeless.

At the heart of this case are concerns about the legality of local authorities setting up private companies to operate as corporate landlords, allowing them to let council-owned properties at market rates to generate income. Read more about the background and grounds of the challenge here.

Campaigners say many of those private renters being made homeless will now have to seek housing from the same council which is evicting them:

“Due to it being the sole creator and shareholder of Homes for Lambeth (HfL), Lambeth Council is the de facto landlord. When threatened with homelessness, tenants are meant to approach their local authority for it to fulfil its homelessness prevention duty. The first step in doing that is to help the tenants remain in their current homes, as per the government’s Homelessness code of guidance for local authorities. Yet in this case, the landlord and the local authority are the same entity - Lambeth Council. How can Lambeth Council adequately protect its tenants’ interests when it is to argue on their behalf with... itself? Not to mention, the council’s Homeless Advisers have been instructed to advise vulnerable HfL Tenants that staying in their flats would not be an option. That is against Lambeth Council’s own Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s recommendations (Rec 3, p. 9-10).

Cllr Danny Adilypour, who has been acting as the public face behind this decision, said himself that ‘this is a political decision’. It may be just that for unaffected Cllr Danny, yet for HfL Tenants it is the difference between their families becoming homeless or not. It is the difference between falling into destitution or not. In some cases, it is even the difference between life and death, as some of the affected tenants have attempted suicide directly because of this decision. And that’s all it is - a decision. A choice. A choice that this Labour council is making right as the current Labour government is about to abolish this type of evictions (Section 21). Lambeth Council is actively choosing to uproot dozens of families, disrupt their and their children’s lives, inflict harm upon their mental health, and socially cleanse its vulnerable residents out of the borough. It’s gentrification in its purest form. We can’t allow for our communities to be fractured by it.”

Campaigners are calling on supporters to gather at the Court. Details of the time and location will be publicised the day before, so please follow @hfltenants for details.

The Claimant is represented by Alexandra Goldenberg and Saskia O’Hara of the Public Interest Law Centre, and Alex Shattock of Landmark Chambers.

For press enquiries, including press approved images, please contact: Conor Crooks on 07919 405319 or hfltenants@gmail.com