Almost 17,000 people have called the Shelter helpline to complain about problems with their landlord in the past year.
That is according to new figures released by the charity, which said rogue landlords were to blame for increased cases of harassment, threats and even assaults.
A survey of almost 4,000 people carried out in July by YouGov, found that one in ten renters said their landlord had carried out an act that could have resulted in legal action.
Shelter said that if the figure was equated across the whole of England it would mean 125,000 private renters had fallen victim to some kind of ‘abuse’ from their landlord in the past year.
Alongside abusive behaviour, renters reported rogue landlords cutting off utilities, entering homes without permission, and not protecting renters’ deposits.
Alison Mohammed, Shelter’s director of services, said: “It’s shocking that a small minority of rogue landlords who are exploiting the housing crisis can cause so much havoc and misery in the lives of renters.
“The only way to fix the problem long-term is to make renting fit for purpose for the millions of ordinary families searching for a safe and stable home. For anybody experiencing problems right now, Shelter gives them somewhere to turn for support and legal advice when a rogue landlord crosses the line.”
Mark Cook, Shelter’s helpline adviser, said: “Every day at Shelter we speak to people desperate for help because their lives are being made unbearable by a rogue landlord.
“Some of their experiences are truly awful – from renters who have been illegally evicted and had their belongings burned, to those who’ve had their utilities cut off because their landlord wants to intimidate them.
“No-one should have to put up with a landlord who breaks the law and it’s so important to know your rights as a renter. Shelter is here to help anyone having problems with their landlord.”
Comments (8)
I don’t believe figures where they have been extrapolated. If most of the complaints come from deprived areas such as parts of east London extrapolation would be grossly inaccurate. Shelter have I suspect damaged their reputation by the way they report findings. Register with their web site to see how they operate with what is, in my opinion, touting for complaints.
“The only way to fix the problem long-term is to make renting fit for purpose for the millions of ordinary families searching for a safe and stable home.” – Agreed. It’s how that remains the issue. Shelter seem quite conciliatory in this – the headline reads as if their were complaints about 17,000 landlords yet you could be forgiven for thinking later that there were 17,000 complaints about one landlord. It also appears that agents weren’t involved in these issues. So, Shelter, instead of trying to deprive agents of income by campaigning to ban tenant fees, landlords should be encouraged to engage professional agents.
Why would you ring Shelter anyway? I bet most haven’t even raised a proper complaint via the agency if managed, or the landlord formally.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understood this to be complaints specifically about private landlords, not agents.
And of course there is always the correct complaints procedure to follow, I wonder just how many of the complainers followed this procedure before complaining to shelter
Groundhog day! more nonsensical stats from Shelter
17,000 people have called Shelter- that is 0.41% of all Tenancies (0.096% of tenants in those tenancies) ergo 99.904% of tenants are happy with their landlord and haven’t rung Shelter
Then we get into the usual, unexplained Shelter methodology for manipulating numbers how does 10% of 4000 people surveyed become 125,000?
Without the 4000 people being quantified and qualified these are simply made up numbers to support a cause. We used to get these tripe statistics on LAT, please have the respect for the audience not to simply repeat them as fact without qualification or questioning. The general public and industry ignorant government department might swallow this lobbying don’t expect us to.
You talk about manipulating stats and then do exactly the same thing.
17,000 people have got so far as having to call Shelter. That doesn’t mean that the others are happy or haven’t received any of the forms of abuse that are mentioned. That’s a horrible leap of logic as it isn’t a binary option: happy with landlord or call shelter. There are lots of alternatives for unhappy tenants. The 17,000 is simply a fact that 0.41% of tenancies (your numbers) have had to resort to calling Shelter.
On the second statistic:
4,000 is a pretty good sample size for a survey so I’d say they can extrapolate from that with at least some level of confidence.I’d certainly add in a standard deviation or two to be on the safe size but that number is a lot safer than your 99.904% of tenants are happy with their landlord. It’s a small matter but 0.41% of tenancies are unhappy and have called Shelter. The difference between the two is 0.314% which is a hefty number of people living in the same tenancies where the call came from. Do you think that the .314% were happy just because they themselves didn’t call but somebody else in the tenancy did?
I am pointing out a fundamental error in the maths that neither Eye nor Shelter spotted.
58 people out of the 3792 people questioned (1.53%) is the figure extrapolated up to give the 125,000 figure quoted in the story not the 1:10 reported in the story.
17,000 is 0.38% of the 4.377 million tenancies used in the Shelter statistics.
If you don’t like the maths how about a re wording? a maximum 17,000 people called to complain to Shelter out of an estimated 8,290,618 (over 18s) who could have. That is 0.205% and excludes the children of tenants in PRS.