UN accuses a corporate landlord of abusing human rights

An enormous scandal has broken out in the UK property market. Recently, the United Nations organization has accused a major corporate landlord of violating human rights. This owner would have around 2,000 properties in the United Kingdom.

It is Akelius Residential, a company based in Sweden that operates in Germany, Canada, the USA, and the United Kingdom. Akelius Residential manages almost 44,000 rental apartments worth £ 10.46 billion.

Leilani Farha, a UN special rapporteur on the right to housing, conducted an in-depth investigation into this company and came to a rather severe conclusion. According to their results: Akelius Residential is fostering a hostile environment for its tenants by creating degrading conditions for residential stability, rent payment, and continued threats of eviction.

“They maximize profits at the expense of the well-being of their tenants.”

Leilani Farha said: “Akelius Residential has a very aggressive and very unethical business model. They have a great desire to make a profit, and they do whatever it takes for it, even if that means violating the human rights of their tenants.”

“Akelius buys large residential apartment blocks, often with tenants living in them. Then, they begin to carry out renovations in common areas of those apartment blocks; most of the time without a need to justify that action; their only objective is to elevate the price of their rents and they force their tenants to pay for something they don’t need or request.”

“These unnecessary renovations are the perfect excuse to increase their rents, no matter if they are new or existing tenants. This helps them to evade rent increase regulations and seriously infringes on the rights of these tenants.”

“They threaten their tenants with eviction.”

“Some of these renovations caused tenants to live in unsafe places for months. Also, many of these people were left without water or heat.”

“Akelius Residential uses the facade of being a responsible and charitable company, yet its business model tramples on the essential human rights of hundreds of thousands of people. We cannot continue to allow this.”

“They have done horrible things, for example, they threatened to evict hundreds of their tenants to carry out various renovation jobs that they did not need. They are simply looking for an excuse to increase their rents and continue to attack people.”

Akelius Residential made a profit of around £ 409 million in 2019. In the next few days, both the UN and the national authorities will make a decision related to this case. Akelius Residential is expected to receive a millionaire fine for this accusation.

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