Guardian article criticises property guardian concept

A lengthy Guardian article offers an exposé of the Property Guardian industry. The article highlights really major issues experienced by one individual guardian - with further reference to other cases. This unacceptable situation, which is attributed in part to the mushrooming in property guardian firms, is contrasted with the "good old days" when there were just a few companies such as Ad Hoc and Camelot: It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When guardian schemes launched in the early 00s, they provided genuinely cheap and unorthodox housing alternatives. Artists and creative professionals lived in old schools, office blocks and council houses awaiting refurbishment or demolition. There were only a handful of companies in the market. “In the beginning you might pay £250 a month for a huge space. There was a feeling it was the best-kept secret in London”, says Gloria Dawson, an academic at Durham University who is researching guardian schemes. In exchange, guardians forewent the comfort and security of a traditional tenancy and agreed to the terms of guardian licences. The Guardian exposé does not point out that the "handful of companies" it alludes to are thought to remain by a good distance the largest and are still in business operating on the same terms (as far as we know) as they did in the "good old days". The problem seems to be that the industry is unregulated and organisations including councils seem willing to ignore basic quality issues in procuring property guardian services from start-up firms without essential experience or infrastructure. This is not say that the larger firms may not also produce problems. Comments submitted to the news story are largely negative and do describe shortcomings experienced with at least one of the major firms (Camelot). However, the major property guardian companies are understood to be pressing for agreed and much-needed standards across a number of different aspects of property guardianship, a process with the Empty Homes Network has offered to support insofar as we are able. The basic concept of property guardianship, particularly as regards commercial properties that would otherwise remain empty or could only be accessed via squatting, seems a useful one in the context of long-term housing shortage and taking into consideration the balance of pros and cons from the point of view of the guardian in that context. NOTE The Empty Homes Network annual conference is sponsored by Ad Hoc Property Management Ltd. The author's brother is a property guardian.