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According to research carried out for the Guardian, rising rents have made life unaffordable for private tenants in various parts of the UK.
Analysis shows that asking rents on new listings have increased by nearly a third since 2019 – and some people are facing increases of up to 60%. Prices in 48 council areas are now classed as affordable by the Office for National Statistics when compared to average wages.
It comes amid warnings of a growing wave of evictions, accusations of “price gouging” by some landlords and fears that the “rent crisis is fast becoming a homelessness crisis”.
Tenants in London and Manchester are planning protests this weekend to demand the government freeze rents as an emergency measure.
Michael Gove, secretary of state for equalization, housing and communities, is facing growing calls to finally ban no-fault evictions, which are used by landlords seeking to raise rents, despite the government promising to do so from April 2019. was Ministers also face. Demands to pay more in housing benefit to cover rising costs.
The London Renters’ Union said its members reported average rent increases of around £3,400 (21%) per year – described as “rent rises” – with consumer price inflation at 9.6%.
A union member said he and his partner were forced out when the landlord demanded £8,000 more a year and were now working two jobs to pay an extra £200 a month in rent on their new home. Another said he was couch surfing after being evicted following an unaffordable rent hike.
“It’s a very dark situation when you have 20 years of work behind you and nothing to show for it,” one renter in her thirties told the Guardian. She is awaiting bailiffs after refusing to pay a 60% rent increase in an east London property with a leaking roof, taps and rot.
Sarah, 56, a part-time carer in Manchester facing the choice of a 16% rent increase or eviction, said: “Gove is not moving on anything. That’s not good enough. People live there in damp and squalid conditions. There is a huge crisis developing.”
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced the rent freeze in September, describing the pressure on household budgets as a “humanitarian crisis”. The UK government has resisted rent controls, saying last month it would lead to “disinvestment in the sector”.
In Manchester, Bath, Nottingham, Cardiff, Brighton and Exeter, the average asking rent is now more than 30% of the average couple’s income, the level at which the ONS considers rent “affordable”, a Guardian analysis found.
One in five homes in England rents and costs have risen sharply in recent months as the Bank of England hiked interest rates. In June, across the UK, average advertised rents were 5% higher than 12 months earlier, but by October they were 12% higher than the previous 12 months, according to figures provided to the Guardian by property data company TwentiCi.
The sharp rise in rents seems to have been triggered by some landlords creating a rent racket, with rising interest rates and others following their example. While there are 4.4m renting households, there are only 2m buy-to-let mortgages, suggesting almost half own outright. Tenants told the Guardian how they were served with eviction notices on properties in significant disrepair, only to be left with several hundred pounds a month more in rent.
“Nearly a million private tenants are at risk of being forced out of their homes this winter, and more will follow,” said Shelter chief executive Polly Nett. Eviction notices in the last month were 80% higher than the same period last year, and 482,000 were behind on their rent. “Every day our emergency helpline counselors are taking gut-wrenching calls – from a mother skipping meals to pay rent, to a family fearful they will spend Christmas in a homeless hostel.”
Housing and Homelessness Minister Felicity Booken said last month that the Tenancy Reform Bill, which would ban no-fault evictions, would be introduced “during this Parliament”, meaning tenants could remain unprotected until the end of 2024.
Since the lifting of the ban on pandemic evictions, with expedited proceedings, no-fault eviction court hearings, where no hearing is required, have tripled to 6,619 in the three months to the end of September – well above the pre-pandemic rate. . From April to June, English councils had to help almost 6,000 families who either became homeless or threatened with homelessness after receiving a no-fault discharge, almost double the number a year earlier.
In October, the average rent listed by estate agents across the UK was £1,150 – up 12% from the £1,025 recorded in October 2021, and up 28% from the average price of £895 recorded in 2019, according to TwentyCi. The analysis is based on live asking price data of around 200,000 properties per month on property portals and estate agents’ sites.
Asking rents in Westminster rose by 48% in the year to October, the biggest rise in the country, while properties available to rent fell by 18%. House hunters saw rents rise by 37% in Arun, West Sussex, 35% in Windsor and Maidenhead and 34% in Elmbridge, Surrey.
Chris Norris, policy director of the National Residential Landlords Association, said falling supply was responsible for rising rents. He criticized Gove for wanting to “shrink the private sector”, and said the NLA was urging him to “go the opposite way”, unfreezing housing benefit and accelerating housebuilding.
“Demand for private rental housing is up 142% so far this year compared to the five-year average, according to Zoopla,” Norris said. In contrast, the supply of such housing has fallen by 46%. The end result is that more and more tenants are finding it difficult to access the dwindling supply of homes, resulting in higher rents.”
A spokeswoman for Leveling Up, the Department for Housing and Communities, cited the energy price guarantee, which runs until April 2023, as evidence of help for renters.
“Councils have a duty to ensure families are not left without a roof over their heads, and we are giving them £316m this year to help prevent evictions and provide them with temporary accommodation,” the spokesman said. “Ensuring a fair deal for tenants is a priority for the government. That is why we will fulfill our commitment to abolish Article 21 ‘no-fault’.”
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