This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The 1.4 million UK landlords are ethical as has been described by their tenants, with 77% of tenants rating their current landlord as either good or excellent.
These results come from Saga Home Insurance, who also found that over half (56%) of tenants would like their landlord to do more to help them.
Most UK Landlords are Ethical
It also revealed that 10% of landlords do not pay their tenant’s deposit into the Deposit Protection Scheme.
This can cause problems if a landlord has to evict a tenant; with landlords having to pay tenants their full deposit before serving notice and starting the eviction procedure.
The research does, however, suppress the common stereotype of unethical landlords. Just 8% of the adults surveyed described their landlord as poor.
The study also found that landlords are more likely to complain about late rent payments (37%), damage to the property (32%), and tenants who left the property with little or no notice (20%).
Tenants are most likely to complain about landlords being difficult to contact (23%), and poor tradesmen used for repair work (21%).
However, many landlords accept the worth of answering tenant enquiries quickly (55%), and having home emergency cover that the tenant can use 24/7 (32%). Despite this, only 19% thought that they should organise alternative housing for a tenant when their property is made uninhabitable, by an event such as flooding.
Head of Home Insurance at Saga, Sue Green, says: “In the age of housing shortages and escalating rents, landlords have been getting some bad headlines, but the research shows the extent to which this portrayer is unfair. The vast majority of landlords are conscientious and ethical, although tenants do believe more can be done.
“Anyone who is a landlord should consider whether there might be more that they could do to make things easier for their tenants, which will be beneficial to all involved.”1
1http://www.landlordexpert.co.uk/2014/12/03/uk-landlords-more-ethical-than-they-are-given-credit-for/
