Inside the UK’s renting crisis as tenants pay thousands upfront and live in mould and damp ridden properties
RENTERS are facing a crisis in the UK. Tenants are being hit with skyrocketing rents, spending months looking for a home and being forced to pay thousands of pounds upfront.
We take a look inside the UK’s rental crisis – and how renting has become unaffordable for many.
Spending months searching for a home
In popular areas, tenants are competing with dozens of others to get a property, and homes can be snapped up within hours of being listed – meaning some renters end up searching for months.
Business owner and blogger Imali Chislett has been searching for a three-bed home with her husband for six months.
The 23-year-old, who is a wheelchair user and needs a step-free living space, told The Sun that the situation has been an “absolute nightmare” and she’s had to extend her search range to 40 miles from her Portsmouth home.
“I’m ringing estate agents and saying ‘hey, can I put money on this property?’ and they’re immediately saying to me it’s already gone, or there’s X amount of applicants already,” she said.
She was told by a letting agent that an average of 150 people have been showing interest in each property, with a list of 70 sent to a landlord to pick from.
Offering hundreds of pounds extra in rent
Priority is often given to those who will spend the most, forcing applicants to offer well over the listed rental price to get any chance of securing a property.
According to data from Generation Rent, 21% of tenants who moved in the last year had been asked to bid or offer the highest they could afford – up from just 2% before 2019.
Chloe Tickner, 28, ended up paying £100 over the asking price for her home in Surrey after struggling to find anywhere that would allow her to bring her dog.
“We were looking for the longest time and it felt like absolute chaos,” she said.
“We were looking on Zoopla and every time we selected the pet-friendly option, the list of properties went from 200 to about four.”
All the properties that were listed as pet-friendly would be gone “in seconds”, she said, so after two months of no luck, she and her partner took the drastic measure of driving from their previous home in London to Surrey and calling up to book viewings on the way.
They viewed a property on the day and put in an offer over the asking price immediately as they felt “under pressure” to just get somewhere.
Paying thousands upfront
Other renters have had to pay huge upfront costs to secure a property.
Marlena Jagoda, 22, was forced to pay six months’ rent – totalling £6,600 – before she’d even moved into her new home in Brighton with her partner.
She had been searching for a place for four months but was getting turned down every time she put an offer in, and in some cases she wasn’t even able to view the property because she had to fill out a “pre-screening questionnaire” first.
“I’m looking online and it literally says ‘do not call us, just email and we’ll send you a pre-screening interview, and then based on that we will choose who can get a viewing’,” she said.
When the couple did find a property, they were told they would have to pay the first six months of rent upfront because Marlena’s partner didn’t have a guarantor.
Mould and damp ridden properties
Poor living standards are rife in private rental properties.
Just under a quarter of private rentals – some 23% – in England did not meet the decent home living standard in 2021/22.
Rented homes are six times as likely to be affected by damp as owner-occupied homes.
New rules for landlords were imposed as part of the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act in 2019 – but campaigners say these do not go far enough to protect and help renters.
For Sean Urquhart, 54, his problems began shortly after he moved into his flat in Newcastle.
The copywriter quickly discovered the shower had no hot water and the toilet didn’t work – and on top of that, there was a major mould problem.
When he reported the issues to the landlord, he was told to use a bleach spray or paint over the mould.
Mr Urquhart, who has asthma and bronchitis, said: “It took the landlord a further fortnight with me having no shower and no hot or cold running water or sanitation to find me somewhere alternative to live while it was sorted out.
“It wasn’t fully sorted out until six months after that, so I was in and out of horribly cheap hotels.”
Mr Urquhart said he had to shell out for cleaning products and his health suffered greatly to the point where he was unable to work.
A huge spike in demand
Gumtree, which lists properties on its platform, said the demand for good quality rental properties is “at a critical level and shows no signs of reducing”.
The latest data indicates the rental market is “under huge pressure” and the shortage of homes is spread across the UK rather than just being confined to the largest cities.
Although some areas are still seeing huge demand, insiders say there are promising signs the rental market is starting to level out again, with prices flatlining and even coming down slightly in London.
The pandemic has often been blamed for rocketing rental prices and sky-high demand between 2021 and 2022, as fewer properties were coming on the market than usual and a surge of renters who had been unable to move during lockdown were looking for somewhere to live again.
Gareth Atkins, managing director of lettings at London-based Foxtons, said demand at this time was “like nothing I’d ever seen” but he is now seeing 20% more properties than this time last year and tenancy applications have also dropped.
Prices in London have dropped by about 1% since last year, he said.
Another director of lettings, Greg Tsuman from Martyn Gerrard Estate Agents, agrees that things are getting “better”.
There is still an “imbalance” of supply versus demand, he said, but the number of tenants battling for each property on average has come down from 45 in November 2022 to about 12 now.
Rents still too high for many tenants
Campaigners argue that despite demand slowing down, rents are still far too high.
Generation Rent estimates prices have gone up by between 30-33% in the last few years, while wages have only gone up by 19%.
Deputy director Dan Wilson Craw said in that time, many renters were pushed out of the UK’s big cities because they simply couldn’t afford to pay.
Data from SpareRoom shows the average rent for a room in a flatshare is £740 a month across the UK, and £943 in London.
Matt Hutchinson, a spokesperson for SpareRoom, said renters have been turning down job opportunities because they can’t afford to move out.
However, he is seeing rents falling slightly in London and anecdotally he has heard that landlords renting out the priciest properties are struggling more to shift rooms.
What to do if you can't pay your rent
FOR private renters, speak to your landlord as soon as you can.
They may be able to defer your payment, or to allow you to pay a smaller amount – but they don’t have to do this.
Social renters should speak to their housing association or local council.
If you’ve tried speaking to your housing association or landlord and they aren’t being sympathetic, contact Shelter for advice and support. They’ll be able to guide you about what to do next.
If you’re finding it difficult to manage your payments because you’re in debt, here are some tips for you to curb it:
Check your bank balance on a regular basis – knowing your spending patterns is the first step to managing your money
Work out your budget – by writing down your income and taking away your essential bills such as food and transport
If you have money left over, plan in advance what else you’ll spend or save. If you don’t, look at ways to cut your costs
Pay off more than the minimum – If you’ve got credit card debts aim to pay off more than the minimum amount on your credit card each month to bring down your bill quicker
Pay your most expensive credit card sooner – If you have more than one credit card and can’t pay them off in full each month, prioritise the most expensive card (the one with the highest interest rate)
Prioritise your debts – If you’ve got several debts and you can’t afford to pay them all it’s important to prioritise them. Your rent, mortgage, council tax and energy bills should be paid first because the consequences can be more serious if you don’t pay
Get advice – If you’re struggling to pay your debts month after month it’s important you get advice as soon as possible, before they build up even further.
Groups like Citizens Advice, Money Advice Trust or StepChange can also help you prioritise and negotiate with your creditors to offer you more affordable repayment plans.
Section 21 notices forcing renters into homelessness
Affordability has been a massive problem for retired bus driver and RAF veteran Trevor Shore, who fears he won’t find somewhere to live after he was slapped with a no-fault eviction notice by his current landlord.
Mr Shore said he had “never bothered the landlords for much” during the five years in his Poole flat and had even done several repairs himself, but was served the eviction notice after asking whether they could replace the windows in his cold and draughty flat.
The 66-year-old said he has bid on about 20 properties so far but many homes have been out of his price range and others would not let him bring his two dogs with him.
The retiree, who has an MBE for services to road safety for children, received court papers two weeks ago and will be forced out of his flat at the beginning of August – just a week after he is due to have a major operation on his foot.
“I’m not ever going to live in a shop doorway. I’m not living on the streets,” he said.
Housing charity Shelter says it is seeing more and more examples of people being kicked out of their homes through Section 21 no-fault eviction notices and then struggling to find anywhere else they can afford to rent.
“It’s affecting more and more families and children, more and more older people. So we’re seeing people caught up in this spiral that you just wouldn’t expect,” said Polly Neate, the charity’s chief executive.
She said the problem is “getting worse” and since the last government first promised to scrap no-fault evictions in 2019, some 500 renters a day have been served a Section 21 notice.
Shelter is calling on the new government to scrap no-fault evictions – something that formed part of the Renters Reform Bill put forward by the last government but never passed.
However the British Landlords Association says landlords have been “spooked” by the threat of banning Section 21 notices and many have sold up as a result – in effect making the rental crisis worse.
Its chief executive Sajjad Ahmad said landlords fear not being able to get their property back if needed and this threat has led to a shortage of housing and considerably higher rents.
“We urge the government to take immediate steps to give private landlords the confidence to let without fear of getting their properties back if the need arises,” he said.
What will the Government do?
The new Labour government has announced a new version of the Renters Reform Bill called the Renters’ Rights Bill.
Under the plans, Section 21 “no-fault” evictions will be banned and tenants will also be given more rights to challenge rent increases.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said fixing the UK’s housing sector is one of the government’s “top priorities” and the bill will “protect renters and crack down on the small number of landlords who exploit tenants with bad practices such as pitting renters against each other in bidding wars”.
Renters will have more rights to request a pet in their home and landlords will not be able to “unreasonably refuse”, although they will be able to request insurance to cover potential damage.
More provisions in the bill which have not been fully set out yet include applying a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector, a new ombudsman service, making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants on benefits or with children, and applying “Awaab’s Law” to make sure landlords deal efficiency with serious hazards.
The Government also plans to increase the supply of homes and says it will “deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”.
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