A Billionaire Landlord, Hundreds of Tenants, and a Mayor Caught in the Middle
Asif Aziz, a billionaire property developer whose Criterion Capital business controls thousands of flats across London, is at the centre of what London Centric describes as the biggest mass eviction in recent London history. Since January, Aziz's company has been issuing Section 21 no-fault eviction notices to hundreds of private tenants, apparently racing to clear buildings ahead of the Renters' Rights Act coming into force.
The motive, according to London Centric's reporting, is straightforward profit. Criterion Capital plans to convert the vacated units into temporary accommodation rented to London councils at higher rates. The money trail then takes a perverse turn.
Money from the housing blocks affected was then flowing directly into the Aziz Foundation, the family's PR-friendly charitable arm. The Aziz Foundation then funded the capital's Ramadan Lights and launched a partnership with the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.
Revenue from evicting private tenants, in other words, was being funnelled into charitable initiatives ostensibly designed to fight homelessness. That contradiction proved too much for Centrepoint, which severed ties with the Aziz Foundation.
The U-Turn That Was Not a U-Turn
When London Centric first broke the story, the political fallout was immediate. Sadiq Khan, London's mayor, publicly intervened. Aziz's tenants received door-to-door visits from a man called "Jason" who told them the evictions had been a misunderstanding. Residents celebrated. But the relief was short-lived.
Within days, tenants who had been verbally told they could extend their tenancies learned this was no longer the case. Legal representatives of Aziz's Criterion company denied that a man called "Jason" who had gone door-to-door revoking the eviction notices, even existed.
The apparent halt lasted only long enough for press attention to subside. When London Centric's reporter Liv Facey visited Criterion's Delta Point development in Croydon and knocked on more than 200 doors, she found a vast number of units already vacated. The eviction was not being planned. It was already well underway.
Dubious Paperwork and a Vanishing Electrician
The investigation uncovered troubling details about the legal paperwork issued to tenants. Electrical safety certificates across multiple buildings, miles apart, contained identical results. The electrician whose name appeared on the documents could not be traced. The company listed on the certificates had been liquidated three years earlier.
When I visited the electrician's stated headquarters on a busy road in Greenwich, I found an abandoned unit. The current leaseholder told me simply: "There is no electrician in the building. The shop is empty."
If the safety certificates are indeed fraudulent, the implications go well beyond the eviction dispute. It would mean tenants were living in properties whose electrical safety had never actually been verified.
A Family That Will Not Answer Questions
Throughout the reporting, the Aziz family maintained total silence toward the press. Phone calls were ignored. Emails went unanswered. Criterion Capital's head of communications asked the reporter to stop calling and deleted a public comment from her LinkedIn page. The company is held through a web of offshore entities based in the Isle of Man, and Aziz himself has moved his tax domicile to Abu Dhabi, leaving his son Omar Aziz to run the London operation.
I was told he was upstairs: "Omar will come and meet you." Then, after a long wait in which several people walked downstairs and appeared to scope me out, the offer was rescinded.
When the reporter finally confronted Omar Aziz outside the family's Jacobean mansion in south-west London, the younger Aziz stared briefly before his chauffeur-driven BMW sped away.
The silence eventually broke, but not in the way tenants might have hoped. The family's lawyers at Carter-Ruck sent a letter objecting to London Centric's "unrelenting focus" and reporting the editor to the police for visiting the company's offices and the family home. On the substance, the legal response was blunt.
"Our firm instructions are that this process has not been 'halted' at all, and our clients do not have any intention of doing so."
Khan's Difficult Position
Khan has been a regular at the Aziz family's social events and has repeatedly helped launch the Ramadan Lights display. His presence lent the family legitimacy and generated photo opportunities they promoted on social media. Now he finds himself writing urgent letters to the same billionaire, demanding an end to mass evictions that are actively displacing his constituents.
"The right to a good, safe and stable home is fundamental and I am steadfast in my opposition to the use of Section 21 no-fault evictions, let alone their potential use on a mass scale."
The letter noted that Criterion had failed to engage with the mayor's team all week. Tenants, meanwhile, remain stuck in limbo. One resident told London Centric she had called Criterion 60 times trying to learn whether she was still being evicted. Another, Alessio Ambrosj, summed up the experience in stark terms.
Criterion had "shown us the true meaning of 'delay, deny, defend'." ... "From hot water issues, to non-operational lifts in an 18-storey building, to extreme temperatures in the flats and more, I have been appalled by the way Criterion has been allowed to operate. It is not befitting of our city."
It is worth noting, however, that Khan's actual enforcement powers here are limited. The mayor of London does not control housing law, cannot override Section 21 notices, and has no direct regulatory authority over private landlords. His tools are public pressure, convening power, and influence over borough councils. A strongly worded letter, even from City Hall, is not a stop order. The question is whether moral authority alone can deter a landlord whose own lawyers have confirmed no intention of stopping.
A Structural Problem Bigger Than One Landlord
Merton Labour councillor Stuart Neaverson, who has spent the week helping affected tenants, called the Aziz family the "cruellest landlords in London" and described the evictions as something from "Dickensian times." Moves are reportedly underway at Merton council to encourage all London boroughs to cut ties with the family and refuse to pay them for temporary accommodation.
There is a broader systemic tension at play here that extends beyond one family's behaviour. The entire temporary accommodation system creates a financial incentive for landlords to evict private tenants and replace them with council-funded placements at higher rates. Criterion Capital may be exploiting this gap more aggressively than most, but the gap itself is a policy failure. Until the economics change, other landlords could follow the same playbook.
Bottom Line
London Centric's investigation has exposed a billionaire property family evicting hundreds of tenants, apparently fabricating safety paperwork, running charity campaigns funded by the proceeds, and refusing to answer questions from press, politicians, or even their own tenants. The youth homelessness charity that partnered with them has walked away. The mayor has written a personal letter. The family's lawyers have confirmed the evictions will continue regardless.
What happens next depends on whether public pressure, council coordination, and the impending Renters' Rights Act arrive fast enough to protect the tenants who are still in their homes. For those already displaced, it is too late. The buildings are emptying.