A new investigation by housing and homelessness charity Shelter has revealed that complaints about private landlords are increasing at an alarming rate. The research was conducted via Freedom of Information requests sent to all 326 local authorities in England.
Statistics from the 90% of authorities who replied to the request shows that the total number of complaints made to councils about private landlords has risen 28% since 2009 and during the last twelve months there has been over 85,000 complaints made by tenants. Almost 62% were to do with hazards involving gas, electrics and severe damp. In just the last year 800 complaints were deemed serious enough for the health authorities to be contacted. In total, local councils have identified 1,498 private landlords who have given them cause for concern in the last year.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said “Despite the significant increase in complaints, we believe that the number of rogue landlords is still under-estimated. Some local authorities don’t keep records of complaints and tenants often hold back from complaining out of fear of the consequences or because they don’t believe their voices will be heard, even though such a high proportion of complaints are about life-threatening issues. Every day at Shelter we see the devastating impact these landlords have on people’s health and wellbeing. There could be thousands more victims of these operators, trapped in homes that cause misery and, in some cases, put lives at risk.”
Shelter’s investigation, which showed that the number of successful prosecutions made against private landlords has gone up by 78% in the last year, will disappoint the great majority of landlords who go about their job in a professional manner They also found that despite having landlord insurance an increasing number of them are not taking safety seriously. The charity praised authorities such as Newham, Leeds, Salford and Manchester who are leading the fight against rogue landlords. The report should serve as a warning to those landlords who fail to provide a good service to their tenants and they should realise local authorities will do everything in their power to support tenants who are getting a raw deal.