Here is the information about the Shelter campaign:
Over the past 10 years, the private rented sector has been the fastest growing type of housing in the UK and is likely to continue to expand, as waiting lists for social housing rise and more people are priced out of home ownership.
Anyone renting a property from a private landlord deserves to be treated fairly and with respect. While most landlords do this, a minority of rogue landlords are getting away with renting out homes that are in an appalling state of repair, and deliberately exploiting their tenants.
Examples of rogue landlord behaviour include:
- harassment and illegal eviction
- failure to ensure that a property is in a fit state – and that it is safe
- refusal to return a tenant’s deposit without good reason
- charging tenants outrageous amounts for hidden costs
- Using undisclosed fees as an excuse to put tenants into arrears and impose further extortionate penalty charges.
Living in rundown or unsafe housing can severely harm the health and well-being of tenants. It contributes to and worsens problems of poverty and social exclusion. And it is not only tenants of rogue landlords who are affected. Neighbours can also be put at risk by poor maintenance and vandalism in adjoining properties.
Rogue landlords make people’s lives a misery by using outrageous scams to rip off unsuspecting tenants, leaving them in serious financial difficulty.
The Government says that tenants are happy with their experiences of private renting and the laws to protect them are working well. Yet a new survey carried out by Shelter with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health reveals that:
- 9 out of 10 environmental health officers working with tenants have encountered landlords engaging in harassment or illegal eviction.
- 78% had dealt with landlords who persistently refuse to maintain their property in a safe condition.
- More than 90% had encountered cases of severe damp, mould, electrical or fire safety hazard in properties they investigated in the last year.
Shelter believes that much more needs to be done to bring rogue landlords to justice and to drive them out for good. In particular, we want to see:
- A zero tolerance approach to rogue landlords by local councils, backed by adequate resources - bringing all local councils up to the standard of the best.
- The ability to ban people from being a landlord for a period of time if they are convicted of an offence related to their behaviour in this role, for instance harassing or evicting tenants illegally.
- Greater transparency and accountability, so that the public are better able to hold local politicians to account for what they are doing to tackle rogue landlords.
