Margaret Perry wants to buy a house one day. But increases in her energy, water and municipal tax bills over the past few weeks have damaged her ability to save. Then, on Easter Monday, her landlord called to say that the monthly rent for her shared house had increased by £ 500.
Instead of £ 675 a month plus bills for her room in Haringe, north London, her rent will rise to £ 825 – an increase of 22%. “It’s just not an option,” said Perry, who earns about £ 30,000 a year and lives with two friends. “It’s hard enough as it is.”
The 31-year-old screenwriter is one of the growing number of tenants who are getting more expensive from rising rents.
In the last month, online demand for “rent increases” and “landlords raise rent” has reached the highest ever value in the UK, according to Google trends – and average private rents have increased nationally compared to levels before the pandemic.
“More people have had their rent increased in the last month or so than we usually see,” said Annie Culum, a policy officer at the Acorn Tenants’ Union. “These may be landlords worried about the cost of living and transferring this to their tenants. Food prices are rising, fuel is rising, energy is rising and people are really feeling the pressure. “
Government guidelines say that for existing tenants, rent increases should be “fair and realistic”, in line with “average local rents” – but there is no limit to how much they can charge.
The proposed changes can be challenged in a rental court. But for many, like Perry, “the stress of it is not worth it.” Between January 2019 and August 2021, only 341 rental cases were dealt with nationally, according to the Generation Rent campaign group. And even if tenants win, they can still be evicted if the landlord delivers a “Section 21 notice” that initiates a no-fault eviction.
Perry and her roommates tried to challenge the rent increase directly with the landlord by offering to pay an extra £ 70 on their current monthly rent of £ 2,350: “We wrote a strict email saying ‘We don’t pay this’. But he said, “I will drive you out.”
The three friends can’t afford the extra £ 500, so they are uprooted. “It’s exhausting and stressful. It feels like we are 100% disposable tenants. You see it somewhere like your home and go to bed, and then a phone call can take that away. ”
App developer Philip Codell, who has to leave his apartment in Bermondsey after a monthly rent increase of £ 650. Photo: Andy Hall / The Observer
In 2020 and early 2021, demand for downtown property – especially in London – fell as pandemic restrictions were few. But now the price of private rent is rising in the capital and nationally, with prices in each region above those before Covid, according to real estate website Zoopla.
In February, the average monthly rent was 984 British pounds, an increase of 8.8% compared to March 2020 – with the sharpest increase in the south-west, where there is an increase of 15%.
Chestertons, a London rental agency serving some of the capital’s most sought-after areas, said the average monthly rent for its properties in 2022 has so far been £ 2,864 – 22% more than in 2019. from £ 2348 per month.
For future tenants, this means additional competition for real estate. “They can be very creative because they obviously want to stand out,” said Richard Davis, head of rental. “We have seen examples of people composing a presentation or creating their own mini web page, with a profile of their pet and pictures of what food they like to cook. One couple told how they met. “
In Manchester, another rental point, graphic design student Chris Copen decided to stay in place despite the “crazy increase” in his rent.
The 29-year-old man, who lives with his partner and two roommates in Salford, works in retail and has just seen his salary increase by 6.8% – from 9.18 pounds per hour to 9.80 pounds.
But in March, he learned that rents for the house he has lived in for three years would increase by a third, increasing his share by £ 112.50 a month. “I almost choked on my Cheerios,” he said. I was like, “That can’t be legal, can it?”
The landlord also asked for £ 519 as an extra deposit. But they really do not want to leave – and other properties in the area have also risen in price. “We made a living here,” Copen said. “So even with the crazy increase, eradicating all of this would be a lot of mental work and financial stress that we don’t need while we’re studying.
“If we move, we will have to pay the same to get less than we have at the moment. So we just had to accept it, really. I don’t know what we will do, but we will make it work. “
Meanwhile, 33-year-old Julie Clark of Lowestoft, Suffolk, recently received an email saying that the rent for the house with a terrace she moved into in June 2020 would increase by £ 50 a month, from £ 600 at £ 650 – despite rotten floorboards and a broken boiler.
She and her public sector partner managed to negotiate it for up to £ 25. But for Clark, who claims universal merit, even this rise seems unmanageable amid rising energy, food and clothing costs for her two young children.
“We were already on the brink before any of this happened. All that is needed is something else to rise and we will really be stuck, “she said. “There is no safety or security.”
Real estate agents are reporting increased competition among tenants in the UK market. Photo: May James / Reuters
Campaigners say more protection is needed – including ceilings for rent increases in line with average wage increases or a three-year freeze on increases for existing tenants.
Generation Rent is also calling for a loophole that allows landlords to demand a six- or 12-month lease in advance, something policy manager Sophie Delamot said is becoming more common. “Before, it happened to international students who may not have a guarantor, but it is increasingly being used as a security measure,” she said.
Previous attempts at reform have failed. There are plans to ban guilt-free evictions as part of the upcoming tenant reform bill, but in 2018 proposals to give tenants a minimum three-year contract – this will allow them to withdraw but prevent them from being evicted in the short term – were abandoned by the government after a reaction from landlords.
The National Association of Landlords, which has 90,000 members, said it opposes reforms such as rent controls, which it says would “discourage investment” in the sector.
Meera Chinduroi, NRLA’s campaign manager, said the rise in rents was fueled by rising costs for landlords – including inflation, energy prices and the cost of materials needed for repairs, as well as supply and demand pressures. Many landlords “will not look to raise rents” because it is “in their best interest to keep tenants in the property if they have a good relationship with them.”
This is not a luxury given to Philip Codell, 30, an application developer from Bermondsy, south-east London.
Last week, he found out that his rent was going up by £ 650 a month – a 25% increase, which he and his partner, a teacher, could not afford. “We are still in shock,” said Kodel, who has no choice but to leave the two-bedroom apartment he has lived in for two years.
He called for reforms to level the playing field for tenants. “At the moment, there is a feeling that landlords can say what price they want and we have to pay it,” he said. “I can’t blame our master; in the end, he just does what landlords do. But it’s at the expense of people like us. “
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