Two-fifths of renters in England ‘have had to live in dangerous conditions for fear of eviction’

Millions ‘have paid through the nose for neglected properties’, says Shelter. Jon Sharman reports

Mould and rot seen in an image shared with Shelter (Shelter)

Nearly two-fifths of private renters in England say they have been forced to live in dangerous conditions for fear of being thrown out of their home for complaining, according to a survey.

Shelter said polling by YouGov suggested 39 per cent of renters, potentially some 3.2 million people, had been in this situation at some point.

Releasing the data as part of a campaign to push Boris Johnson to introduce new laws protecting renters, the charity also said 46 per cent had previously avoided asking for problems to be fixed because they thought their landlord might evict them.

“Because private landlords can evict tenants by serving a section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction notice, where they don’t have to give a reason, losing a private tenancy remains a leading cause of homelessness,” the group said.

Polly Neate, its chief executive, added: “Our broken renting system is overdue serious reform. For years, renters have paid through the nose for neglected properties, left powerless and paralysed by the fear that complaining about basic repairs could see them out on the streets.

“Over the past year, our homes have been our first line of defence against coronavirus. Yet this pandemic has exposed the grim reality that too many of the country’s 11 million renters, including key workers, families and the elderly, wake up every day to mould, pests and dangerous hazards.”

Shelter’s figures are based on two YouGov surveys: one this month polled 3,588 people of whom 553 were currently renting; another from 28 January to 1 February polled 3,603 people, of whom 551 were currently living in a rented home.

Of those respondents currently renting, one-fifth, or 21 per cent, had had to deal with damp, mould, condensation, poor insulation or excess cold in the past month.

The charity wants Mr Johnson to bring forward a renters’ reform bill and create a national landlord register to more strictly regulate the sector.

The Independent has contacted the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government for comment.

One of the people surveyed, Garry Champkins, 50, from Harlow in Essex, said a previous landlord had blamed his family for a persistent mould problem and even demanded they keep windows open in winter. He described the house as a “living nightmare” with black mould rampant and water dripping from the chimney.

“After everything our landlord put us through, he took a chunk of our deposit for carpet cleaning – even though we cleaned them immaculately. How we were treated was a disgrace, but we felt so powerless,” Mr Champkins said.

Bonnie Martin, from Devon, another respondent, told Shelter the home she and her children used to live in also had recurring damp, to the point where the bathroom ceiling collapsed. The 52-year-old said “not being listened to felt very degrading” and that she felt anxious asking about repairs in case the landlord hiked her rent in retaliation.

A leak-damaged ceiling seen in the home of one of the people surveyed by YouGov (Shelter)

On Monday, while on the local election campaign trail, Mr Johnson was asked whether he accepted that successive governments had failed to help renters forced to live in expensive, badly-kept accommodation.

The PM said: “What we want to do is address what I think is the unfairness that so many people, particularly young people, end up paying far more in their rent than they would do in their mortgage.

“And the way around that is to help them with a deposit. And so that's why the product that we've come forward, a mortgage guarantee scheme, I hope will be so successful.

“I hope it will be taken up by people, because what you want is a situation where people can afford the deposit. So we're offering a 95-per-cent mortgage guarantee scheme to help people to get the home that they want and try to convert as many people as we can from being ‘generation rent’, coughing up huge amounts in rent, to ‘generation buy’."