One third of tenants say retaliatory evictions are a threat

One third of tenants allege they have suffered a ‘retaliatory’ eviction or been threatened with one after making a complaint to their landlords about the condition of a property, or after asking for repairs to be carried out.

The claim comes from a survey carried out by online community The Tenants’ Voice.

While the figure seems very high, it is not clear whether it is disaffected tenants who have had bad experiences and who are drawn to the organisation and its website.

Nor is it clear whether these are tenants of landlords who by and large do not use managing agents: the survey says that 61% of tenants would prefer to talk to the agent through whom they found the property.

The site, which says 2,000 tenants took part in the survey, also claims that 61% of tenants are wary about complaining to their landlords and that damp is the number one complaint from 59% of tenants.

Seven in ten (71%) tenants in the survey claim to have paid for repairs to a rental property out of their own pocket rather than report the problem to their landlords.

Six in ten (61%) tenants polled said they had asked their landlords in the past to make repairs and that the landlords had been difficult or flatly refused to sort the problem out.
 
As well as damp, tenants said they had complained to their landlords about the general disrepair  of the properties, while boilers and electrics were also a common focus for complaints.

Glenn Nickols, director of The Tenants’ Voice, said: “While 86% of tenants have never heard of retaliatory evictions according to our poll, a third of the tenants we surveyed who have been evicted or threatened with eviction have actually fallen foul of this practice.
 
“If tenants are not comfortable about approaching their landlords, then a good letting agent can be extremely helpful in resolving any problems.”