The Residential Landlords Association has rejected the findings of a new survey on tenant evictions and accuses the charity of once again needlessly playing to people's fears.
Alan Ward, RLA chairman, says his organisation accepts there are landlords who should be rooted out of the sector but insists some 98 per cent of private tenants have not faced significant problems with landlords or their properties.
Shelter's continued vilification of landlords will serve only to put the good landlords off further investment and push tenants into the hands of those operating under the radar says Ward.
In the survey Shelter claims over 200,000 people across the UK have been threatened with eviction in the past year because they asked their landlord to fix a problem in their home.
The numbers analysed in the study are not revealed by Shelter but the charity claims as examples:
- a family in Norfolk handed an eviction notice three weeks after reporting damp and mould to their landlord;
- a couple in Brighton who complained that the mould and damp in their home was affecting their health, and were served an eviction notice a week later;
- a family from Lancashire evicted after complaining about a leaking roof and allegedly being told by their landlord that it wasn't worth his while' to fix the problem.
Shelter also claims that more than 40 per cent of renters have had problems with mould in the past year, while 25 per cent have lived with a leaking roof or windows and 16 per cent have electrical hazards in their home.
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Comments
Shelter are also claiming that 43% of properties in the private sector do not have a Gas safety.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/1-in-20-scots-suffer-carbon-monoxide-poisoning-1-3337098
From my experience I would guesstimate the amount that don't have a gas safety as being about 2-3% so this appears to be another whopper from the well paid professional liars at Shelter.
Leaving the statistics in the report to one side for now, retaliatory evictions are NOT acceptable. Nor is disregarding genuine repair requests. That said, a process for educating tenants on their responsibilities would go some way to alleviating the damage to the tenant/agency/landlord relationship that the repairs process can cause.
I know for a fact hey haven't asked any of my 150 tenants or so Looks like Shelter might be making up figures
I cancelled my monthly subscription after seeing this latest report. They were hauled up recently by people in the industry for acting more as a lobby group then a charity. This latest post is once again playing on peoples fears and exaggerating a problem experienced by the few. I would love to see the data.
I tried to comment on their website to this effect - my post was deleted!
25% of renters (presumably they mean 25% of all tenancies then) have lived with a leaking roof or windows
Really 25% A quarter of all properties are not weatherproof
Agree with Stuart here. There is always a reason and in the cases stated it may have been that the tenants just hadn't paid and this was the final straw.
The examples give no information around the evictions. Either;
a) as with previous comments the tenants were causing the problem, doing nothing to help it so the landlord had no option but to evict them before they caused further damage
or
b) there was a real issue with damp not caused by the tenants and the landlord may have not had the funds to carry out the works or the works were too serious to carry out with a sitting tenant so the landlord had no option but to evict the tenants
or
c) the landlord is a miserable bar steward who doesn't like people complaining so the tenants are probably better off away from him and his property anyway and the landlord will struggle to let a horrible damp property.
And where do these percentages of tenants with damp, leaks or electrical hazards come from Do the tenants say they have or have shelter had their properties checked by a qualified professional
I'm not saying tenants don't have problems, things leak, damp can appear and things break down its a fact of life, its whether the agent/landlord responds to these problems that's important and if not then find a new agent/landlord.
We have a clause in all of our tenancies now that the tenant MUST ventilate the property and not dry clothes inside where at all possible. So many tenants don't seem to realise that if you don't open windows, use extractors, then damp and mould magically appears.
Agree with Alan Ward and the comments here
Shelter need to realise that the reason most tenants are being evicted is because they are either not paying the rent or are trashing the property. And in my experience the majority of mould cases are down to the tenants not ventilating properly.
In my experience most mould and damp is caused by tenants not ventilating their property properly. Do they ever open the bathroom window after a shower
Do they dry clothing on the radiator
Do they block air vents with tissues
Answers on a postcard please.
And what is the percentage of tenancies that these complaints refer to
We need to know the total numbers contained in their survey/analysis for this to make any sense at all!