We shall miss Louis Mahoney

Louis Mahoney

• WE were extremely saddened to hear of the recent death of Louis Mahoney at the age of 81, (Raise a glass for pioneering actor Louis Mahoney, July 9).

In addition to being a resident of Hampstead, an actor and anti-racist activist, Louis was also a longstanding member of Camden Federation of Private Tenants.

As your July 9 article points out, he came to this country in the 1960s and consequently had what is known as a Regulated or Rent Act tenancy.

This means that he was part of a diminishing group of Camden residents who live under a system of rent control, administered by rent officers employed by the Valuation Office Agency, a government agency which is part of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

Although the fair rents system, as it is known, is very bureaucratic and not particularly tenant friendly, it does keep a significant number of our older residents living here in Camden, because it provides them with both security of tenure and lower than market rents.

However, it also means that tenants can live for a very long time under the same landlord or as a “sitting tenant” under several different landlords.

It was only a few weeks ago that Louis was in touch with us because he was having ongoing issues with his landlord, and was also worried about paying his rent, due to doing this by the traditional method of payment by cheque, and Royal Mail not operating at fully capacity due to the impact of Covid-19.

Even though he hadn’t been very well recently, he still had his usual softly spoken fighting spirit and was his customary lovely self, something which many people made mention of in last week’s article.

Everybody here at CFPT who knew or spoke to Louis Mahoney at one of our meetings will really miss him, and we will do everything we can to keep on helping and supporting private tenants through these difficult and challenging times, as we also know he really appreciated and valued this kind of unique service that Camden provides.

ROBERT TAYLOR

Camden Federation of Private Tenants (CFPT)

Malden Road, NW5