Renting: ‘We were kicked out because we complained’

Mould and a broken toilet were just some of the problems Chiara said she and her family faced in their rented home over the past two years.

But when the teacher complained to her landlord, she said they responded with a no-fault eviction notice.

It comes as a survey found tenants in England who complain to landlords were more than twice as likely to get an eviction notice than those who do not.

It has renewed calls to scrap no-fault evictions, known as Section 21 notices.

The government pledged to ban the use of Section 21 orders in England last June, but since then the number of households threatened with homelessness because of such notices has increased by 34%.

Shelter, a major housing charity, said that scrapping no-fault evictions was more urgent than ever, especially with the number of homes available to rent in the UK dropping by a third over the past 18 months.

Chiara told the BBC that she, her husband Ben and their three-year-old daughter Maggie had “lived with disrepair for two years” in a flat in Leyton, London.

“We had moths in the carpet, the cellar was flooded, we had no bath, the toilet broke so we had no toilet,” she said.

With mould and damp also causing problems, Chiara complained about the state of the flat to her landlord.

“They responded with a Section 21, giving us two months’ notice to vacate the property,” she said.

“We were kicked out because we complained.”

Chiara, who is a teacher in Walthamstow, said that after they got the notice in January, the family experienced a frantic search to find a new home, finally moving into a new place two weeks ago.

She said while searching they discovered that rents had surged.

Chiara said it made it “pretty much impossible” for them to find another two-bed flat with a garden, so now the family has moved into a one-bed.

According to a YouGov survey of just over 2000 private renting adults in England commissioned by charity Shelter, tenants facing issues with properties who then complained about disrepair to their landlord were more than twice as likely to be handed an eviction notice than those who had not.

The research found that 76% of private renters in England have experienced disrepair in the last year, and a quarter of renters have not asked for repairs to be carried out due to fear of eviction.

“We just need to get rid of Section 21,” said Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive.

She added there needed to be a “situation where landlords can evict people for legitimate reasons, and can’t evict them just because they complain about the poor condition of their home”.

David and Samira from Richmond in North Yorkshire have had a similar experience to Chiara and her family.

The couple were issued with a no-fault eviction just before Christmas after complaining about damp.

Samira was six months’ pregnant at the time.

David said the eviction was “really unfair” and caused a lot of stress for the parents-to-be.

“Looking at the options we had as tenants there was very little we could do. It was just really baffling, really confusing, it doesn’t seem like a fair process,” David added, after being outbid or rejected for more than 30 properties they had viewed.

“Soul destroying is the term I’d use for it, it was just rejection after rejection after rejection.”

David and Samira managed to find a new home just in time for the arrival of their daughter Aila last week.

The government is due to introduce a Renters’ Reform Bill before the summer, which it has said will redress the balance in the market and provide more security for tenants.

Housing rules are different in each of the devolved nations, and Scotland and Wales have already banned no fault evictions.