A family facing eviction after reporting mould to their landlord is among groups calling for tenancy reforms to tackle hazardous housing to be extended to private renters.
Francesca Cambridge Mallen, 44, a PhD student from Shropshire, told i her family have been left “essentially homeless” after being served a so-called “no-fault” eviction notice to vacate the home they have lived in for five years.
Rogue landlords will have to repair mouldy homes within 24 hours under a new push to improve social housing standards following the death of toddler Awaab Ishak.
The two-year-old died of a severe respiratory condition in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in December 2020, with a coroner concluding that his death was caused by “chronic exposure to mould” in his family’s flat.
Under new Government proposals, landlords will be expected to investigate hazards found within their properties within 14 days and start fixing them within a further seven days. Emergency repairs will have to be carried out within 24 hours.
Tenants will be able to take their landlords to court should they fail to comply with the timescales.
But the planned reforms have been criticised by renters’ groups for not going far enough in protecting private tenants.
Ms Cambridge Mallen is among tenants who have reported being threatened with rent increase or eviction by their landlords for making complaints about the quality of their homes due to the existence of Section 21 eviction notices, which allow landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason.
She told i: “In November we first raised contamination problems and water saturation from the damp and mould. We had to throw clothes away and Christmas presents that were covered in damp.
“We had always stuck to our tenancy agreement, never missed a day’s rent.”
The family then complained to their landlord, claiming he responded by stating he would increase their rent by more than £100 a month. They agreed to have a conversation about the proposed increase.
Ms Cambridge Mallen, who is the mother of an autistic daughter, said the landlord then arrived at the property unannounced and told her the family should open their windows to let the damp out — despite many of the windows in the property being sealed shut.
“When the shower door fell off its hinges in December, and hit our daughter, we complained and the next day he served us with an eviction notice,” she said.
“Now we have until 14 March to find a new home. So now we are homeless just after Christmas. This is our home.”
While charities have welcomed the Government’s plans to compel social housing landlords to fix mould or damp within 24 hours, they pointed out that many private renters are not afforded the same legislative protection.
Experts have warned that the oversight has left private renters “vulnerable” to eviction “and lacking protection”.
Siobhan Donnachie, a spokesperson for the London Renters Union, told i that while the law is “slowly catching up with the crisis in social housing… private renters deserve these legal protections too”.
“Across the private rental system, we need a massive overhaul of safety enforcement to ensure our rights on paper become a reality,” she said.
“We need to see local authorities given the resources to hold negligent landlords accountable and renters should be given the legal right to withhold rent until their landlord makes the necessary repairs.”
Latest statistics from the English Housing Survey found that around 4 per cent of homes in the social rented sector and 11 per cent in the private rented sector had dampness.
Portia Msimang, a project co-ordinator at Renters’ Rights London, told i: “Hazards such as damp and mould are more common in privately rented homes than in homes rented from councils or housing associations.
“Landlords can flout their existing obligations all too easily. At the moment, with so little security of tenure, too many private renters live with hazardous disrepair because they fear eviction at the earliest opportunity if they seek to assert their rights. This includes more than a million families with children, as well as increasing numbers of elders,” she added.
According to research by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, 1.6 million children in privately rented homes are living in cold, damp or mouldy homes.
In 2019, when Theresa May was prime minister, the Conservative Party vowed to get rid of Section 21 evictions.
The Renters Reform Bill, which will abolish Section 21 evictions, was brought to Parliament last year but it has not yet been passed into law.
The Citizens Advice Bureau has called on the Government to “end ‘no-fault’ evictions, so that tenants do not risk eviction when complaining to their landlord about their housing conditions” as soon as possible.
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