Londoners are paying to live in deserted schools, office blocks and an old cathedral to avoid ‘insane’ rents

  • CNN
  • January 31, 2025
London

CNN

 — 

Opposite a bed in central London, light filters through a stained-glass window depictingin fragments of copper and blue, Jesus Christ.

Three people have lived in the deserted cathedral in the past two years, with each occupant, an electrician, a sound engineer and a journalist, paying a monthly fee to live in the priest's quarters.

The cathedral is managed by Live-in Guardians, a company finding occupants for disused properties, including schools, libraries and pubs, across Britain. The residents, so-called property guardians, pay a fixed monthly "license fee," which is usually much lower than the typical rent in the same area.

Applications to become guardians are going "through the roof," with more people in their late thirties and forties signing on than in the past, said Arthur Duke, the founder and managing director of Live-in Guardians.

"That's been brought about by the cost-of-living crisis," he said. "People are looking for cheaper ways to live."

A guardian's bedroom in the priest's living quarters in a London cathedral, pictured in January 2025.

Phil Clarke Hill/CNN

The practice of populating disused properties with guardians is unregulated in Britain and comes with fewer legal protections for the residents than renting. Guardians have also complained of inconveniences and outright hazards, such as no access to drinkable tap water and rickety ceilings.

Still, demand for guardianships is rocketing as rents and property prices remain unaffordable for scores of people in many parts of the country.

Luke Williams has saved "thousands and thousands of pounds on rent" as a guardian over the past six years. The 45-year-old currently lives in a former office block in east London. It's a huge, open-plan space still dotted with whiteboards and hand sanitizer dispensers.

Williams said his job a project manager for a tech company pays well, yet "insane" rental costs in the British capital are keeping him in guardianships as much as his penchant for the unusual.

"As well as making financial sense, I like the lifestyle, and I like the interesting, quirky places," he said.

A lifestyle choice no longer

Guardians often live in spacious buildings, in prime locations, which are due for demolition or redevelopment and whose owners want to deter squatters without paying for a round-the-clock security team.

The practice started in the Netherlands in the 1980s and has long attracted artists, musicians and other creatives in search of enough square footage to do their work, as well as those prepared to live more precariously. For example, in Britain, guardians can be asked to vacate the property with 28 days' notice, compared with the two months afforded to most private renters.

Luke Williams said he has saved thousands of pounds on rent living as a guardian since 2018.

Phil Clarke Hill/CNN

Williams currently lives in a disused office block in east London.

Phil Clarke Hill/CNN

More than 13,500 people live as guardians in Britain, according to an estimate by the Property Guardian Providers Association, compared with the 11 million renting their home through a private landlord.

Graham Sievers, chair of the PGPA, which represents three large guardianship providers, companies that connect property owners with guardians and manage the buildings, said demand is "the highest it's ever been" since the practice arrived in the country about 20 years ago.

About 50,000 people applied to become guardians via those three companies last year, a rise of more than two-thirds compared with 2022, the previous time the PGPA surveyed its members. Although guardianships have traditionally attracted people in their twenties, increasing numbers of thirty-somethings are signing up, said Sievers.

In London, much like in New York, rents have shot up in recent years as people have flocked back to big cities after the pandemic.

The average private rent in the British capital jumped 11.5% last year, to £2,220 ($2,764) a month, according to provisional government figures. And data from SpareRoom, a popular roommate search site, shows that the average monthly rent for a room in shared accommodation in London stood at £993 ($1,212) during the last three months of 2024.

According to Ben Twomey, chief executive of Generation Rent, a non-profit campaigning for renters' rights, the typical rent in London meets the government's definition of "unaffordable," eating up more than 30% of a renters' pre-tax income.

For some, then, guardianships have offered a lifeline.

"There's a new type of person who is probably almost forced into (guardianship)," said Louis Goss, a 29-year-old journalist and former guardian. "Basically, that's the only thing that's affordable to them."

Goss said that what began as a "bohemian lifestyle choice" looks increasingly like a symptom of Britain's housing crisis.

The government estimates that 300,000 homes need to be built each year in England alone, but housebuilding is failing to keep up with demand.

Like a ‘pirate ship'

Goss has done four separate stints as a guardian in London, in an empty police station, a nursing home for the elderly, a student residence hall and, finally, a town hall.

In 2019, in the police station located in the capital's upmarket Chelsea neighborhood, Goss lived with around 50 other guardians, most of whom had recently left college and were searching for cheap housing and new friendships. Each month, he paid a license fee of £500 ($610), which covered bills, roughly half of what he estimates he would've paid as a private tenant in the same area.

He remembers hosting parties in the basement and its adjoining holding cells, and climbing up a fire escape to access the kitchen. The joyful chaos and camaraderie felt like being on a "pirate ship," he said. "The feeling was very much like people had chosen to be there."

But, by 2021, the mood had shifted.

In the student residence hall, Goss said he encountered more people in their thirties looking to save money as rents rose. Some moved into the building's basement, which a group of elderly Catholic nuns had occupied until the pandemic forced them to make a hasty exit, leaving behind crucifixes and religious robes.

Last year, Goss decided to walk away from guardianships and rent privately. "I had just got tired of the conditions," he said of his final building, which came without drinkable tap water. He had noticed, too, shrinking discounts on many license fees compared with rents. The benefits of guardianship simply no longer justified the drawbacks.

Not a ‘life raft'

Tim Lowe, founder and director of The Lowe Group, a guardianship provider, has hiked license fees in recent years as the costs of running properties, including energy bills, have skyrocketed. The fees are still lower than comparable rents, he noted, but the gap is smaller than in the past.

Lowe is adamant guardianships should be a "platform" to help people make friends or save money to buy a home, not the last resort for the vulnerable, such as those who could qualify for government-subsidized housing.

"It's not a life raft," he said.

The UK housing ministry states in its guidance on guardianships that it "does not endorse or encourage" the practice because people "can be asked to live in conditions that do not meet the standards of residential properties."

Rows of houses lie in front of the Canary Wharf skyline in London, Britain in March 2023.

Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Charley Hullah, a long-time guardian, can concur.

The 31-year-old musician has been a guardian in six properties since 2013. He left one after the kitchen and bathroom ceilings caved in and recalls feeling nervous every time he took a shower, which had been installed under a mass of electrical wires in an old toilet for disabled people. Twice he smelt burning.

He believes that providers often have "no incentive to do things in the proper way" because the buildings are set to be demolished anyway.

The PGPA has stepped in to supervise providers, setting standards on fire safety, for example, and conducting random inspections of buildings.

"The property guardian model should work, and it should work well," said Sievers at the PGPA, noting that he has asked the government to establish an agency to regulate the industry. He believes vast amounts of office space still lying vacant after the pandemic could be repurposed for guardianships to help ease Britain's housing shortage.

Dreaming of owning

For now, scores of Londoners are trapped in a vicious circle. Costly rents mean they are struggling to save the money needed for a down payment to buy a home, which in turn keeps them stuck in rented housing.

Twomey at Generation Rent said renters in Britain have a particular incentive to buy as they generally enjoy fewer legal protections than their counterparts in Europe, such as guardrails against eviction and excessive rent hikes.

Supporters of the London Renters Union, a campaign group for renters' rights, march through London in December 2024 to demand rent controls across Britain.

Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty Images

But, according to a 2023 analysis by the non-profit, it would take close to 20 years for a single person on an average income, renting in shared accommodation in London, to save enough for a down payment on a property in the city.

The average price of a house or apartment in London stood at more than half a million pounds in November ($635,000), according to the latest government data.

"We're basically losing so much of our potential to save to our landlords," said Twomey. "It's just impossible to pull together that money."

For some, guardianships have eased that challenge.

Mavis Alaneme and her husband bought a two-bedroom apartment in a county southeast of London in 2023 after almost a decade bouncing between guardianships and rented accommodation.

Houses for sale in the window of a real estate agent in Reading, UK, pictured in March 2024.

Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

The 40-year-old business analyst estimates she saved more than £16,000 ($19,700) in unspent rent during that time thanks to being a guardian, adding that her most recent guardianship helped her save for the down payment on her current place.

By the end, she was weary. Guardianship properties were often run down, the inspections by providers felt intrusive and license fees were rising.

Alaneme has bought peace of mind with her apartment. "You just can't match it," she said. "To actually be here and just sit on our sofa and be like ‘no one's going to kick us out' unless you don't pay the mortgage… This is ours. We're settled. And it's lovely. It's a really lovely feeling."

But, for others, guardianships did not turn into that much hoped-for springboard.

"I never thought I'd be doing this for this long," said Hullah, who lives in a disused apartment block in north London. "I thought I might be able to move up some kind of ladder into private rented (housing), but I still can't afford it. So, I just essentially got stuck."