To think it’s inexcusable that the Tories haven’t held landlords to account more

[P3trolBlu3]

Just picked up my son from uni. The house he is living in and paid £££££ is awful. It’s all we could afford.

Its cold in the winter, damp and riddled with black mold. The agency and landlord refused to do anything. The boiler kept breaking so they had no hot water, heating and they’ve been without a working washing machine for week.

All together the 3 of them will have paid £17k for the year. It’s such an absolute rip off and in 2024 ludicrous that as a country we can’t protect renters from this.

Why has nothing been done about it?I’m very aware my son is privileged and going home to a mold free, warm house with hot water and a washing machine but families are being left to live permanently in housing like this.

They’ve had 14 years!

What are you honestly talking about?

I’ve not heard of that before (I’m in London) but a quick Google search shows me what it is. It sounds as if it has the power to actually hold LL’s accountable as opposed to just relying on the council. I’m not sure about everyone else but my Local Authority are piss poor

It often really is. I see so many houses with condensation running down the inside of the windows in winter and the windows firmly closed. Houses need airing.

All the airing in the world won't fix a house with endemic damp problems. The UK has a lot of these but we're in denial about them because our houses cost so much, so we tell ourselves they must be worth it. They're not.

Those picturesque Victorian properties, one brick thick, with little to no foundation and no real gardens (to soak up water) for miles on end, are now meeting the ever rising water table and no amount of opening windows or breathing quietly indoors is going to mitigate the damage that's happening.

This is a supply and demand problem. Created by successive governments and Tories have been worse than all.

The problem lies with an increasing population and not enough housebuilding.

I do understand that as a damp country there are bigger issues in the UK than just airing houses can solve, however there surely must be instances where airing, and heating, a house properly will make a difference. Surely not everyone lives in a Victorian property! Of course endemic damp problems are not so easily overcome, but there are still a lot of people who don't open windows or doors every day. Where I live we have a lot of damp houses, although we are not a wet country, but I've never had an issue - even though I sometimes dry laundry indoors - and we don't have central heating here and double glazing is not the norm. My windows have condensation running down them most mornings at present (it's winter) but I wipe it off every day.

I have a friend in the UK who suffers from endemic damp in her house - it sounds awful.

The UK is certainly not the only part of the world with that problem.

Yes all of this, what did they do to help the situation?

This - decent landlords are selling up now because if Keir gets in he’lll hammer them (because they comply with the law) and you will be left with the ones like your son’s.

Well they’re clearly not because the housing market is pretty stagnant.

Didn't the Tories pledge in their 2019?to make it a legal requirement that rented accommodation had to be fit fit human habitation?

Or did they vote against doing that?

I forget.

It's a local council issue, not a Tory issue. The Tory's have introduced a number of policies to 'professionalise' the private rental sector. Unfortunately many local councils have been mismanaged and taken on too much debt which they now cannot afford.

@Bewareofthisonetoo yes
@P3trolBlu3 Hamptons estimate 28000 landlords leaving the sector ever month for a year now we are in a housing emergency that’s why no one can get a rental. I have a small barn in the garden I put it up for rent before going air band b 40 messaged in 20 minutes from desperate people there is nothing to rent anywhere. The government has legislated beyond reason and landlords are voting with their feet only the slum
ones will be left. Scotland is suffering even more if you aren’t looking for a rental you have no idea how bad the situation is

I sometime wonder why damp is more prevalent in tenanted properties…

linked to maintenance perhaps?

Did they put the heating on?

With a boiler that kept breaking?

I’m shocked how many people are supporting the landlord! Honestly. No idea where in the country you are, but having lived in 3 terraces I had issues with every single one with damp. All of them I was a tenant in.

first uni house was a shit hole I look back at photos and think how did we live there. Had black mould
where a water boiler must have been above the ceiling in our bathroom - a perfect circle of black mould. Delightful. We did open then windows because when we put the heating on it was full blast as LL refused to fit a thermostat, so better than completely sitting in freezing cold or being too hot. It was on or off. 2nd was my mates house and the window was on trickle vent all the time…the mould was always under the window and you used to be able to pop bubbles of water under the paint on window ledge. 3rd was a LL had to ask multiple times to fix a leaking down pipe which was actually making next doors damp, told them repeatedly that the pointing had gone and was damp. Eventually got them to fix a seal in one window and the pointing as the wall under the window was bulging due to getting wet and was covered in mould. (We brought a dehumidifier and it was on all day in the winter) shower was leaking and pissing water through the ceiling in the kitchen…first told us they wouldn’t come out for a week to fix it! Not even half the issues at that place! I’m sure some LL are great and some tenants are terrible but should be regulated better both fronts

I think many of the replies here show where some of the issues with the rental market come from.

It seems some people like to blame tenants for everything, think that they should be happy to have the privilege to pay a ridiculously high rent for a badly maintained property and that every damp problem can be fixed by opening a window.

It is the landlord job to maintain the property if there is a huge damp problem (that goes well beyond simply having to ventilate properly...) and fix things like dodgy boiler, leaky gutters and roofs.

Like any other business, if you are a landlord you need to expect costs as well as profits.

I do hope Labour will make tighter legislation to better regulate the market.

The Tories did nothing because, as people have already commented, many of them are landlords and they think home owners/landlords are the ones more likely to vote Tory...

I think he can clean the mould himself and use a laundrette, but the lack of heating is not something he should be putting up with

They clearly haven’t legislated beyond reason when people are living in such shitty housing. So your answer is to just let families live in shit living conditions?

He was making £17k a year from them. He could afford to fix the boiler, sort the chronic mold and damp and get a washing machine that works. If you don’t want to spend money on work that needs to be done you shouldn’t be a landlord.

It’s being advertised again for next year- as it is.

He did try to clean the mold. It’s everywhere though and putting machines on his windowsill didn’t work. They came in and put some really strong smelling chemicals on some of it( in the room he sleeps in) at the beginning of the year and then refused to do anything else even though they kept telling them.

Lots of renters are scared of asking for any repairs incase they get served with a section 21 “revenge eviction” this Tory Government promised to stop that but thanks to landlord lobbyists have dragged their heels! This is literally the only area of contract law that I can think of where there are virtually no rights for one party and they are treated as second class citizens! My daughter paid £24,000 up front for a property in a leafy southern town and after asking for the boiler to be repaired (25 years or more old according to the gas engineer the agents eventually sent out) was served a section 21 notice. This is sadly a common experience for many.

Like any other business, if you are a landlord you need to expect costs as well as profits.

Well, yes. But the profit is now so slight that only those willing to cut corners to preserve their profit are left.

You used to get more tax reliefs as a private landlord and they have been slowly removed, making the profit less. I know many will be comfortable with that idea but as I say, ultimately you’ll get less quality housing as you skim more and more off.

Exactly this!

And I know the landlord isn’t planning to do anything about is as they had to sign up for tenancy up until the next term and nothing has been planned as regards work on the serious issues that need sorting. They’re leaving but unfortunately some other tenants are going to be left with the same issues and families with young children will have no ability to leave living in conditions like this.

It’s not ok in 2024 and after 14 years of the same government.

A section 21 notice still only allows you to evict a tenant at the end of their contractual term - it does not allow you to throw someone out midterm.

In this scenario the boiler must have been safe as you need an annual gas safety check? So if the landlord was trying to dodge repairs they would have caught up with him soon enough.

£17k a year for a hovel that has clearly had no work done on it for years !!!! The entire house is falling apart. The mortgage will have been tiny. It’s a tiny terraced house in a not very nice area.

Come on. He’s making a massive profit. Students are surviving on loans that aren’t keeping pace with the cost of living so pretty sure landlords making the above can cope with keeping property in a decent condition on the profit he’s making.

A boiler breaking down doesn’t necessarily make it unsafe but it definitely means you go without hot water and heating.