'We're desperate': inside London's rental nightmare

Skyrocketing rents, a cost-of-living hike and poor-quality housing stock-it’s hell for renters in the capital

- Emma Magnus

LAST month, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan repeated demands for the Government to freeze private rents and ban evictions, arguing that renters are facing a "triple whammy, with rising rents, bills and the cost of household essentials". There is a reason that Khan and others have made these calls so many times. Renters in the capital are in trouble.

"The cost of London rentals has risen by an average of 16 per cent in the past year more than anywhere else in the country, says Zoopla, while the London Renters Union found that increases of 30 to 50 per cent are increasingly common, with most renters struggling to pay.

"In part, soaring prices are fuelled by a shortage of supply: the number of tenants outnumber the rental properties available. SpareRoom calculates that there are 106,000 people looking for rooms to rent, against 1,500 available properties. It is no longer uncommon to hear stories of hundreds of people competing for properties, being asked to pay a year's rent upfront or for prospective tenants to have to undergo elaborate, "undignified" interview processes".

"It's a terrible situation," says Claire Poppleton, a spokesperson for the LRU. "It's been building for a number of years... and it's getting worse." It is creating an "artificial market", she explains, where landlords are pushing up rents without justification.

"Landlords have this huge, unchecked power, and it's pushing millions of ordinary people into poverty. What we're seeing is that the Government has the power and means to tackle this and to help people."

For tenants, this is driving housing insecurity. Many people are forced to accept worsening - even unsafe-conditions to avoid re-entering the market, and are often afraid to retaliate because of the looming threat of a Section 21 no-fault eviction. These increased by 121 per cent nationally between 2021 and 2022.