Rent Soars in the UK as Refugees Live It Up in Hotels

1. Overview

In summer 2025, protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers intensified across the UK. A post on a Korean online community claimed that this policy was one of the main reasons rents were rising in major UK and European cities. Under the Refugee Convention and domestic law, the UK government must provide accommodation for asylum seekers until their cases are decided. In the past, it mainly used private housing, but hotels took over that role after the COVID-19 pandemic, worsening tensions with local communities.

The immediate trigger for the conflict was the sexual-offence allegations against an Ethiopian asylum seeker staying at a hotel in Epping, Essex. The UK government subsequently said it would close all asylum hotels by 2029. Meanwhile, a post on FM Korea linked the cost of hotel accommodation to soaring rents in a single line of argument. It claimed that hotel contracts and various forms of support cost enormous sums in taxpayer money, and that this had shaken the housing market and driven up rents for British residents. However, many of the figures in the post were the author’s own estimates, so the causal link cannot be considered proven.

2. Expansion of the Asylum Hotel Policy

Since 2020, the UK government has converted hotels into temporary accommodation for asylum seekers. According to a news article screenshot attached to the FM Korea post, the number accommodated in hotels rose from 1,200 to more than 47,000 over two years, and more than 32,000 were still staying in hotels afterward. The Hankook Ilbo reported that, as of June this year, 32,000 asylum seekers were staying in more than 200 hotels across the country.

The BBC identified the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor that made the problem worse. Kate Wareing, head of a housing association in Oxfordshire cited by the BBC, said hotel accommodation was “eye-wateringly expensive.” She argued that costs of about £54,000 per asylum seeker per year could be reduced to as little as £4,000 by moving them into social housing. Her proposal is for the government to provide an average of £80,000 so local councils and housing associations can buy and renovate buildings. According to the BBC, officials are discussing the proposal with nearly 200 local councils as part of a pilot scheme.

The FM Korea post added much larger figures. It claimed that the UK Home Office paid around 7–8 million won a month in hotel contracts, and that central government spending alone was estimated at more than 10 trillion won a year, or around 14 trillion won, once legal, medical, maternity, childcare, education, and cultural support were included. It said that money spent separately by local governments, civic groups, and NGOs was not captured in the statistics, adding that the total “can only be imagined.” No separate sources were provided for these figures.

3. The Bell Hotel Case in Epping and Escalating Protests

The immediate trigger for the protests turning violent was an incident at The Bell, a three-star hotel in central Epping, Essex. Citing the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard, the Seoul Shinmun reported that a 38-year-old man from Ethiopia staying at the hotel, which had become temporary asylum accommodation under a government contract, was arrested on suspicion of sexual offences. He had entered the UK illegally in a small boat on June 29 and was arrested on July 8, nine days after arriving, after a teenage girl reported him. During the investigation, offences against three other women also came to light, and police charged him with five offences in total, including three counts of sexual assault. He is reportedly denying all the charges while in custody. The Hankook Ilbo described the same case as the rape of a 14-year-old girl, so reports differ in how they characterize the allegations.

After news of the arrest broke, angry residents gathered outside the hotel. On July 14, anti-immigration groups and human rights activists held counter-protests that clashed, and a man was seen passing through a police cordon with blood on his head. The Seoul Shinmun reported that police separated the two sides to prevent further clashes, but made no arrests. Chris Whitbread, leader of Epping Forest District Council, called it irresponsible to place vulnerable people in the middle of a town without proper management. He launched an online petition calling for the hotel to close, which reportedly attracted more than 4,500 signatures. A YouTube video on the BBC Politics channel reported that a local council representative described Epping as a “powder keg.”

The conflict also moved into the courts. According to the Hankook Ilbo, the local council for Epping sought an injunction requiring asylum seekers to leave the hotel. The High Court in London granted it on August 19, setting September 12 as the deadline for them to leave. However, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision on August 29, adding to the confusion. In west London, five masked men were also arrested after trying to enter a hotel housing asylum seekers during an anti-immigration protest.

4. Government Pledge to End Hotel Accommodation and What Followed

As the conflict reached its peak, the UK government took a hard line. Citing the BBC, the Hankook Ilbo reported that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on September 1 that “all asylum hotels will be completely closed under this government,” pledging to end hotel accommodation before the 2029 general election. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would like to bring that date forward if possible. His reasoning was that doing so would require processing applications quickly and returning those whose claims were rejected. Accordingly, the government plans to reform the appeals system to speed up the deportation of rejected applicants and reduce the period for those granted asylum to find accommodation from 56 days to 28. It also temporarily suspended new applications for family reunification for refugees.

Political pressure also contributed to this hard-line approach. The Hankook Ilbo explained that the UK Reform Party, a far-right party leading in opinion polls, had announced plans to deport 600,000 undocumented migrants within five years if it came to power, putting pressure on Starmer’s government.

The issue connects to the debate over rents because private rentals are being considered as a way to reduce hotel accommodation. In a report dated August 13, 2026, The Guardian said the government was considering paying higher rents for private rental homes to distribute asylum seekers more evenly across the country, under a plan by Andy Burnham. At present, the Home Office is subject to strict limits on the rent it can pay landlords, so accommodation is concentrated in the cheapest areas. The Guardian explained that using private rentals and former military barracks would be cheaper than hotels, while a Downing Street official said the top priority was to reduce the need for accommodation for asylum seekers in the first place.

5. Rising Rents in European Cities and the Community’s Claims

The FM Korea post began with the burden of rents in European cities. A statistics graphic cited by the post showed that, over 10 years, average monthly rent for a studio rose from €600 to €1,250 in Berlin (108.3%), from €650 to €1,176 in Madrid (80.9%), from €850 to €1,400 in Paris (64.7%), and from £1,180 to £1,898 in London (60.8%). The listed sources included the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and the UK Office for National Statistics. The post also said that renting a room in London cost more than 2 million won a month, with council tax charged separately. A room shown in an accompanying YouTube screenshot reportedly cost 1.895 million won a month despite sharing a kitchen and bathroom.

The post claimed that asylum seekers were staying in hotels with free room and board, and that the government was spending enormous sums of taxpayer money to accommodate them. It went on to say that hotel contracts, property purchases, and accommodation provided through private suppliers known as HMO providers had pushed up accommodation costs, rents, and property prices. It also claimed that there had been reports of local governments paying 8 million won to rent private properties for asylum seekers when they had previously contracted for them at 3 million won a month. It said statistics showed that the arrival of legal migrants alone had increased average monthly rents in London by 400,000 won. There were also claims that asylum seekers who became undocumented migrants paid twice as much rent as British residents using cash income and crowded into low-cost housing, but these are closer to unsubstantiated hearsay. The post quoted a Reddit reaction predicting that the UK government would buy more homes instead of reducing hotel use, and concluded that life for British residents would become even more difficult.

6. Authenticity Debate

The central question is whether the policy of accommodating asylum seekers is a major cause of soaring rents in the UK, or whether it is being blamed for a broader structural trend affecting major European cities.

6.1. The View That Asylum Accommodation Has Driven Up Rents

This side starts with the scale and method of accommodation. If the number of people housed in hotels rose from 1,200 to 47,000, it argues, the private market providing that accommodation could not have been unaffected. According to The Guardian, the government has been finding homes in the private rental market to house asylum seekers across the country, with much of that housing concentrated in areas where rents are lowest. Since these are the same areas where young people and low-income households can afford to live, the argument is that a reduction in available low-cost housing and rising rents in those areas are inevitable.

The government is also considering using more private housing, even if that means raising rent caps. If the proposal reported by The Guardian is implemented, landlords will be able to receive higher rents from the government. This side argues that once the state enters the market as a buyer willing to pay high prices, market rents are bound to follow. Reddit concerns that ending hotel accommodation will lead to more home purchases and rentals by the government fit the same argument. If so, would ending hotel use simply shift rent pressures elsewhere rather than solve the problem?

6.2. The View That the Evidence Is Too Weak to Blame the Policy

The first point raised by the opposing side is the statistics presented in the post itself. Rents have risen outside the UK, too. In the same graphic, rents rose by 108.3% in Berlin over 10 years, 80.9% in Madrid, and 64.7% in Paris, while London’s increase of 60.8% was the lowest among those cities. If the asylum hotel policy were the main factor, and the UK its central focus, London should have had the highest increase—but it did not. This suggests that soaring rents may have resulted from broader factors rather than the asylum policy of any one country.

It is also unclear whether the number of people in hotels is enough to affect the UK’s entire housing market. According to the Hankook Ilbo, 32,000 asylum seekers were staying in hotels. The post’s figure of 14 trillion won in annual support payments was explicitly described by its author as an “estimate,” while it said that spending by NGOs and others “can’t even be calculated.” The post also provided no evidence showing a causal relationship with rents. The Guardian reported that private rentals and military barracks were cheaper than hotels, while Wareing’s proposal, introduced by the BBC, was to expand social housing to reduce costs. The fact that hotel accommodation is expensive and the claim that it has driven up rents are two separate propositions.

Neither side has provided figures showing exactly what share of the UK housing market is accounted for by asylum accommodation. It is clear that the hotel policy has exacerbated local tensions and financial burdens, but the extent to which it has pushed up rents has not yet been established.

7. Trivia

• The FM Korea post ended with a three-line summary: “European rents are 400–500 a month and it’s killing us / Meanwhile, tens of trillions in taxpayer money are being spent on refugees / And it’s one of the main reasons rents are rising.” Given that many of the figures in the post are estimates, the summary is categorical.
• “Hotelcation,” the word used in the post’s title, is a sarcastic reference to asylum seekers’ lives in hotels. The post also says that civic groups working on refugee and immigration issues, as well as asylum seekers, complain that these hotels are inhumane and no different from detention centers or prisons.