News / acorn
CJ Hole defend rent rise letter
Lettings agency CJ Hole Southville has defended a letter which it sent to landlords suggesting they could raise rents because of a “buoyant rental market” in Bristol.
More than 11,500 people signed a petition against the letter, which was handed into the company offices during a demonstration at the weekend organised by community union Acorn.
Around 200 people took part in the march on Saturday and Acorn called on the agency to sign up to its ethical lettings charter which has recently been endorsed by Bristol City Council.
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However, a spokesman for CJ Hole Southville said it is “essential” landlords and tenants could “operate on fair and free-market principles”.
He said: “Our approach to landlords was to ensure that appropriate fair and free-market rents were in operation.”
He told the BBC:”Artificially low rents will not encourage new rental properties to come forward or for investment to be made into existing assets, thereby harming the overall rental market in the locality. This benefits no-one in the longer term.”
However, Chris Hill, the managing director of CJ Hole’s northern Bristol branches, signed the petition against the letter saying: “My offices believe in good service as reason to use us, shame Southville have chosen this route.”
Parliamentary candidates Tony Dyer (Green) and Karin Smyth (Labour) were also at the demonstration.
Dyer said that the manager of the Southville branch should apologise and the letter was fuelled by “nothing more than pure greed”.