The UK’s rental sector is littered with unlawful discrimination and health and safety risks after “piecemeal” reforms, according to a report from a committee of MPs today.
More than one in eight privately rented homes in Britain pose a serious threat to people’s health and safety, while around one in four landlords are unwilling to let to non-British passport holders.
Responding to the publication today, the Public Accounts Committee’s chief executive Ben Beadle has called for a data driven strategy to better regulate the country’s private rental sector.
“Too often reforms have been piecemeal, based on insufficient information to understand their true impact or how workable they are,” he said.
“We agree with the committee’s concerns about the postcode lottery that exists in tackling rogue and criminal landlords. Tenants and responsible landlords are being let down by the pitiful lack of enforcement action by councils using the array of powers available to clamp down on bad practice in the sector.”
Beadle argued that the country’s rental strategy must assess the impact of reforms on the supply of homes for rent – at a time when demand for them is soaring as home ownership falls further out of reach with climbing house prices.
The issue of high demand and low supply has continued to seep into the UK’s rental market this year, with housing stock drying up as staycation rules were eased along with other Covid-19 measures.
While Knight Frank has forecast countrywide rents to increase by an average of eight per cent over the next 12-months, Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, expects levels to “normalise” from next year.
Prime central London rental growth will also struggle to push past four per cent from 2023, the property consultancy added today, as the market begins to relax after the sustained pandemic frenzy.
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