“Rats, cockroaches, awful overcrowding, children living in HMOs…families living in outbuildings.”Īs we wait for her colleague to finish a tenant interview, Anne recounts a recent raid: “We opened a food cupboard…there was a rat the size of a pint glass. 3 Which is all the more disturbing when you consider that a third of households in the PRS have children living in them.Īnne, a no-nonsense Newham housing officer whose polite, concerned tone evokes trust in the tenants she speaks to, has seen it all. 2 Research by housing charity Shelter found that 61% of PRS tenants had experienced damp, mould, leaking roofs or windows, electrical hazards, animal infestations or gas leaks in the preceding 12 months. 1 And in Newham, almost half of the borough’s properties are private rentals, and one in four of those are HMOs (house in multiple occupation).Ĭonditions in the PRS had been improving, but progress has stalled since 2013 – almost 30% of properties still do not meet the government’s basic ‘Decent Homes Standard’. For those aged 24-35 it’s closer to one in two. In the 1990s one in ten households were renting in the private sector, last year it was 1 in 5 (it’s estimated to rise to one in four by 2021). Over the last two decades, the PRS in England has experienced huge growth – adding an additional 2.5 million renters since 2000. The private rental sector is growing and standards need improving That is, until you realise just how vulnerable some tenants are and just how far bargaining power has shifted to landlords. To some, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff and former housing minister Gavin Barwell, such schemes are a “tax on landlords”, heavy-handed regulation that risks putting off landlords to the detriment of tenants. It has revolutionised the council’s approach to tackling abuses, enabling them to better identify and prosecute landlords operating outside of the law.īut while the scheme has many fans – the Metropolitan Police, the London Fire Brigade, the Mayor of London, local MPs and residents – it is not without its critics. I have joined Newham’s joint housing and police team on a dawn raid of properties suspected of being owned by rogue landlords – operations happen early in the hope of talking to tenants before they head to work. In 2013, the London council introduced a borough-wide licensing scheme for private rental sector (PRS) properties. Nearly 30% of properties in the private rental sector do not meet the government’s ‘Decent Homes Standard’. This, I am told by one constable, “is pretty good” – a consensus view among the officers in attendance. There are no beds, just mattresses on the floor. The Newham housing officers point out the mould and damp, the wires hanging from the hall ceiling where a fire alarm should be. The property has three bedrooms, plus the living room which was being used as a bedroom. There were eight or nine, but some have moved out already. There are currently five men, all strangers to each other, living here. The two-storey Victorian terrace house is licensed by the London borough of Newham for renting to a single family of up to six people. He pays £240 a month – “always cash, by a man that just comes to the door, no receipts.” Ali has only lived here for a few months and found the place via a “friend of a friend.” He has no contract or tenancy agreement.
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