The current housing crisis began over 100 years ago in the First World War. In order to put a stop to the continuing increase in rental levels faced by returning soldiers, an increase that had begun almost as soon as war commenced, the government imposed a control on rents. And that control continued in some form or other until the Conservative Party’s Rent Act of 1957.
Between the rent controls of the First World War years and 1957, rents stayed low. The 1957 Act brought in a novelty: once the property was vacated, a new