One million tenants victims of rogue landlords in past year

A shocking new report has revealed that more than one million tenants across England have been the victim of a rogue landlord during the past twelve months.

This means that roughly one in eight renters have encountered issues with landlords breaking the law, according to housing charity Shelter.

Issues

Shelter’s research came from a YouGov poll of 3,250 tenants and returned worrying results.

Issues highlighted included landlords entering homes without consent, deposits not being sufficiently protected, renters being abused or harassed and discrimination on grounds of race, nationality or gender.

Further details from the report suggest that 64,000 people have had their utilities cut off by rogue landlords. 50,000 are predicted to have had their belongings thrown out or the locks on their property changed.

One million tenants victims of rogue landlords in past year

Unacceptable

Richard Lambert, Chief Executive Officer at the National Landlords Association noted: ‘these figures highlight serious issues that are simply unacceptable but our research with tenants shows that 82% say they are happy with their current landlord. Furthermore, Shelter’s figures show the vast majority of landlords to be law abiding.’[1]

Danielle Goodwin, helpline advisor at Shelter, said: ‘every day at Shelter we speak to people at the end of their tether after a law-breaking landlord has caused chaos in their lives.’[1]

‘These range from instances where the renter has been unaware of their rights, to cases where renters are exploited and subjected to terrible experiences by a minority of law-breaking landlords.’[1]

More cause for concern came from the National Landlords Association’s quarterly poll of its members. Results of this poll show that three out of ten UK landlords has been verbally or physically abused by their tenants.

[1] http://www.itv.com/news/2016-09-23/one-million-renters-suffer-under-rogue-landlords/