The activist group Generation Rent says compensation for renters being evicted is one of its top demands in a new manifesto.
Ahead of the Welsh Senedd elections in May, the group has issued three demands: one is a limit on rent rises, another is ending what it calls “unfair evictions” and then also compensation for renters being evicted.
The group claims renters in Wales “are at constant risk of sudden evictions or rent hikes” adding that “high rents leave nothing for the single parent trapped between their rocketing bills and the price of the roof over their head. Nothing for the pensioner, who is forced to stay in a cold and damp home, because it’s better than no home at all.”
It adds that despite what it describes as “the soaring costs” of renting in the Principality, the most recent Welsh Housing Conditions Survey found that Wales has the oldest housing stock in the UK, with privately rented homes in the worst condition. Nearly 43% of privately rented homes were built before 1919, 24% contain dangerous hazards, and 13% have damp problems.
It says: “At the same time Section 173 evictions [of the 2016 Renting Homes (Wales) Act] mean landlords can evict renters in Wales without reason, leaving them more vulnerable to arbitrary or retaliatory evictions than tenants anywhere else in Britain. These types of evictions were banned in Scotland in 2017 and have been outlawed in England’s Renters Rights Act. When renters are not secure in their homes, the impact ripples across society, forcing people into homelessness and poverty. Every party running in the Welsh elections next year must therefore commit to outlawing Section 173.”
On the compensation demand, Generation Rent claims that a typical private renter household pays £1,543 in costs when they are forced to move, covering new deposits, overlapping rent payments, moving fees, and time taken off work.
It wants all political parties to propose that when a landlord issues a 137 eviction notice, “they should waive rent for the first two months of the notice period. This would give tenants the breathing space they need to find a new home without falling into debt or homelessness.”
This article is taken from Landlord Today