A controversy has blown up around the buy to let properties owned by the deputy leader of the Green Party, Mostin Ali.
Ali is the sole director of a company, which he set up and controls, that owns two rental properties in Leeds.
One was purchased for £165,000 in 2022, and a second for £157,000 in 2025 through his company MA Holdings.
The Sunday Times – which broke the story – says both units, at least one of which was a former council property, are currently tenanted.
All this is despite the Green Party having one policy to ‘abolish landlords’ and another to and the Right To Buy council house scheme.
The Green Party passed a motion at a 2025 conference seeking the effective abolition of private landlords by increasing council housing and moving rented properties under public control.
It also demanded rent controls and the outlawing of buy to let mortgages.
On his website Ali claims that he campaigns to shift the Greens away from a “middle-class, southern-focused” image by championing working-class inclusion, renationalisation of key services, and better representation of diverse northern communities.
Our sister publication Landlord Today has asked the Green Party for its comment on the story.
There has been no answer from he party but the Sunday Times reports this response to its own coverage: “We have provided deeply personal information to your newspaper in confidence which shows that Councillor Ali has acted solely in the interests of vulnerable close family members for whom he has caring responsibilities.
“At Councillor Ali’s request, we are not going to make this information public to protect his family.”
And asked whether Ali had sought to take any steps since the policy had been adopted to change anything with regard to the rental properties, a Green Party spokesperson told the BBC he fully supported the policy.
“The policy does not literally seek to abolish landlords, but rather to put in more regulations and taxes on private rentals through measures such as rent controls and expanded social housing,” they said. “All of which Mothin Ali supports.”
