Charley Hullah has been a property guardian in London for 10 years. He saw the scheme as a way to live in the city while being able to afford to be creative, which he says is essential for him. “Guardianship has been a way for me to try and not give up on my art,” Charley said. “I have to do it, I don’t really have a choice. It’s just the thing I need to do to stay sane.”
His first properties as a guardian cost him around £200 a month. “Back then, it seemed like a completely alternative way of being in a city,” he said. It gave Charley space to learn skills he needed to develop as a musician and as a creative.
“I thought was really cool then”, Charley, 30, said. “Years ago, if you’d asked me to recommend it, I’d have said yes because it allowed many creative people to do similar to me.”
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Property guardianship allows people to live in buildings, or parts of buildings, for a lower rate than normal in exchange for ‘guarding’ the otherwise-empty property. Often these properties can be offices, former residential buildings, or even more unusual spaces like former banks and care homes.
But property guardianship is almost nothing like renting, Charley said. “There are almost no rights. We don’t have a contract like a tenant”, he claimed. Charley explained that property guardians sign licence agreements, which gives the guardian a licence to occupy a room or space within a property, but not access to the whole building.
Charley is currently living in a former council house in North London, but was previously living in an old office building where he had access to just one room within the huge property. Charley said he did not feel safe living there, claiming “ceilings were falling down” and that there were leaks.
He alleged that because the licence agreement as a guardian doesn’t have the same regulations as renters’ contracts do, the guardianship company can raise the rent as much they want, as many times as they want. Charley lived in the office building for around a year, and the rent was raised three times during that period, he said.
‘It could all fall away at any moment’
Rent increases became noticeably worse after Covid, as the guardianship companies started saying the cost of maintaining the properties was increasing, Charley claimed. “Now you’re paying over £500 for a place that is falling apart. But I feel like I can’t say no, as they could kick me out,” Charley added. “As a guardian you feel like you have no room for manoeuvre.”
Property guardianship also means moving between buildings often, sometimes with just 28 days notice. “You’re constantly reminded that it could all fall away at any moment”, Charley said. “It’s not secure. Everything in the world, your job, work, money, crazy city, whatever – you want your housing to feel secure but you can’t even be secure on that, so it worsens everything else.”
After 10 years, Charley now finds constantly moving very stressful. Each move also comes with having to discover the state of the property he’s moving into – the current house he’s living in had huge nails sticking out of the floors when he first moved in and he had to spend a week pulling them all out individually.
Some properties don’t have basic appliances like washing machines or fridges, so Charley also has to decide whether it’s financially viable to buy one, especially if he may be moved on three months later. In his current property, the heating and the hot water don’t work at the same time, and the water pressure can’t cope with a washing machine, he claimed. He added: “Properties are often in a bad state of repair, they’re often being demolished for a reason.”
‘I feel like a subclass of tenant who is one step away from being homeless’
Recently, Charley has started to feel like he’s “less than” tenants who are renting privately. He said: “Somebody asked me recently, do you feel like a subclass of tenant? And I’ve come to think: ‘yes, I feel less than’. I feel like I’m one step away from being homeless all the time.”
Charley also believes the justification of living as a guardian due to paying cheaper rents doesn’t stand up any more, given how much more expensive they now are – around 20 per cent less than market value, according to some property guardianship companies. And now, he’s living in a former council house, which was once built to provide homes for people in London who needed them.
He added: “I’m kind of living in the shadows of that. I’m living in the what used to be possible.”
More and more people are becoming interested in property guardianship, “because it’s all they can afford”, Charley said. He added: “Years ago, I’d have seen people like me come to this opportunity as a quite unique thing to do that was much cheaper and allowed you to do a lot of things. But there’s no monitoring in guardianship, right? There’s nothing in law providing an overview. We don’t know how many people are doing it.”
Charley also says guardianship isn’t for everyone. He said: “You need to be resourceful, and you need to have some basic DIY skills. And you have to put up with insecurity. It makes sense for creatives and artists, but for those who are used to private renting to come into this and are then suddenly surprised that there are no appliances, nothing works and you can’t use the shower and the hot water at the same time.”
Charley is now speaking out about his concerns around property guardianship on TikTok. “I just want to make sure people know what they’re getting themselves in for, because my concern is that some companies are almost marketing themselves like estate agents”, he said. “And some will specify that you have to do volunteering, but who can volunteer when London is as crazy as it is with all you’ve got to do?”
And Charley is now worried that the scheme is becoming exploitative as demand increases. More and more people are willing to be ripped off as there are no other housing options, Charley said. “And you’re just caught in this awful, awful situation.”
Got a story for us? Email anna.willis@reachplc.com.
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