Louis Goss is a British journalist who touches the thirties and has lived in an old geriatric, a residence, a town hall and an empty police station of the luxurious neighborhood of Chelsea, in London, which he shared with another 50 people. He has not done so because he looks for original accommodations. Nor is it an Okupa. No. like thousands of people in Britain (and in other nations, as Netherlands), Goss acts as “Guardian”, a figure halfway between the vigilant and tenant.
There are those who assume that role because it is attractive and who is dragged to him by a residential market with Shot prices who have made the average rent between individuals already exceed the 2,200 pounds monthly.
Some data to start. Madrid, Barcelona either Palm They are not the only European cities that look with concern their real estate market. In London things are not much better. There the pressure is so high that its mayor has labeled “scandal” that there are tens of thousands of disused homes, a stock that local administrations want to get into the market RECRUDETING (much) your fiscal pressure.
A couple of data arrive to understand to what extent it has been complicated to find accommodation in the British capital. The Office for National Statistcis (ONS) estimates that the private average rent at the end of 2024 was there in 2,220 pounds monthly after registering the largest annual inflation in the country, with an increase of 11.5%. In 2015 that average was below 1,600 pounds. Even sharing house requires disburseing a considerable sum: According to Spaceroomthe middle room cost 993 pounds per month in December.
And how do I live? That is the question that is asked not a few families, both in the big Spanish and other European cities, including London. Especially since housing purchase is an even more unattainable option than rent. The average price of M2 in the central areas of London moves between 10,700 and 19,400 pounds and the capital agglutina 19 of the 20 most expensive areas in the country. In general, the government estimates that only in England it would be necessary to build 300,000 homes A year, but the construction remains far from satisfying the high demand.
Before that panorama there are those who have found an exit in a peculiar formula that It emerged in the 80s In Netherlands, where they already turn to it tens of thousands of people: the “property guard”. Those who turn to it are tenants, but with very special conditions that allow them to enjoy low prices in exchange for assuming certain discomforts and a mission. According to the CNNIn 2024 the formula interested 50,000 people in Britain.
Tenar No, Guardian. System dynamics He explains it well Live-in Guardians, one of the British signatures that are dedicated to fostering it. “Property guardianship is an innovative and modern way to protect empty real estate and offer a series of advantages,” Share the organizationbased precisely in London. “A guardian is someone who has reached an agreement to live in a building or in a part of a property that would otherwise be empty with the main purpose of ensuring and safeguarding the place.”
The owner of the building gets people who monitor, maintain and prevent construction from deteriorating or ends up. All without hiring a specialized company. And in return the “Guardian” achieves a space in which to live, usually wide, well located and especially for which it pays an affordable price. In 2022 Live In Guardans assured which offered its “guardians” (people that the entity selects among the candidates) renewable contracts of 28 days from 75 pounds a week.
Living in temples, schools … The result is people living as a “tenant-guardian” in places of the most diverse, such as in temples, schools, libraries, pubs, nurseries, pavilions, office buildings, police stations, geriatrics, residences, municipal premises … it is not strange that in addition to empty the constructions are condemned to disappear, so that the owners are mainly interested Loads that entails.
And does it work? Of course the figures are interesting. Citing PGPA dataentity that represents three of the main agents who are dedicated to exploring that formula, The CNN reveals that in Great Britain there are more than 13,500 people living as “Guardians.” And they could be many more. Last year 50,000 people requested to become tutors through the three entities agglutinated in PGPA. Not bad if one takes into account that in 2020-21 the number of candidates was much lower, he stayed in about 32,000.
“People are looking for cheap ways to live”. For Arthur Duke, director of Live-in Guardians, Reading that leave those figures is clear: “It has been caused by the crisis at the cost of life. People are looking for cheaper ways to live.” In your reports The CNN and BBC They talk about Guardians satisfied with the spaces that inhabit, but in virtually all cases the same idea surveys: people use the formula of the vote of empty buildings because it offers them a cheaper option to live.
“Basically it is the only thing that can be allowed”, confesses Gossthe 29 -year -old journalist who has gone through a geriatric, a residence for students and a town hall. Also by a Chelsea police station, in the london. When he did, in 2019, he paid 500 pounds, invoices included, which according to his own calculations meant half of what he would have disbursed for a traditional rent in the area. However, he ended up “tired of the conditions” and in 2021 he decided to lease a more traditional home to become an tenant. Even at the expense of paying more.
Are all advantages? No. The “guardianship” has advantages for owners and guardians, who opt for more economical accommodations, different habitats and even the possibility of meeting new people; But the model also suffers from certain weak points. The guardians do not always have drinking water, sometimes the properties in guardianship are in very improvable conditions and there are who confesses that has come to feel insecure for the state of the wiring.
The PGPA claims that it supervises the properties, performs inspections and marks certain guidelines to avoid precisely that there are no scares; But the United Kingdom Ministry of Kingdom maintains a much less optimistic position on rentals to Guardians. In A guide Specific clarifies that “does not support or encourage” practice and launches a warning: Guardians can live in “conditions that do not meet the standards of residential spaces.”
Beyond the United Kingdom. Real estate guardianship is not a British invention. It is believed that his crib is thousands of kilometers from the City, in the Netherlands, where he set in the 80s. Since then the Canal de la Mancha has jumped and has also arrived in Spain, where in 2021 a company announced its plans to offer temporary home to 5,000 people In empty properties in exchange for reduced prices. His idea was to start in Madrid and continue with Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga and Seville. His drivers raised him as a “Win-Win-Win” in which the owner of the property, the tenant and the environment in which he lives.
Images | Herman Pijpers (Flickr) and Office for National Statistics (ONS)
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