Tenant gripes over landlords revealed
Among the biggest gripes for tenants are landlords hitting them with 'out of the blue' rent rises along with being slow to repair faults, a survey has revealed.
Researchers from wallpaper firm Graham and Brown questioned 1,000 tenants to find out what their most common bugbears are.
They also include the landlord preventing them from redecorating, making a rental home their own and having a small garden.
They also say outdated interior designs and damage that was caused by previous tenants also made them unhappy along with having a ban on pets that make renting a property more difficult.
The researchers say that 44% of tenants believe that redecorating their rental home to their own tastes would lead to them taking extra care of it.
Tenants say they would happily invest money into their home
Plus, three in 10 tenants say they would happily invest money into their home to ensure it looked its best.
The head of marketing at Graham and Brown, Alan Kemp, said: "For many people, particularly the young generation, the idea of home ownership can feel like a pipe dream.
"Landlords usually do not let tenants decorate and this is just one of a long list of bugbears of strict rules that leave Generation Rent lacking in the homestyle stakes."
Other irritants for tenants include being forced to pay large security deposits, not having a parking space and struggling to get hold of their landlord or agent in an emergency.
The tenants also say that their inability to build-up equity, living with mismatched and random furniture, along with untidy flatmates also made them unhappy.
Tenants saw the highest rent rises for four years
Meanwhile, it's been revealed that tenants have been hit with the highest rent increases in four years.
The Association of Residential Letting Agents (Arla) says that rent increases in August hit a four-year peak.
They found that the number of tenants seeing rent increases rocketed to 40% in August from 31% the month before. That is an increase of 35% on last year's figure.
However, Arla says that demand from tenants has also fallen significantly with the number of home hunters registering per letting agent falling by 19% in August, which equates to 64 potential tenants on average.
Arla's chief executive, David Cox, said: "The impact of ongoing tax changes, as we have highlighted previously, continues to have an impact on the buy to let market.
"It is encouraging to see property numbers available to rent increasing, but supply is not anywhere near high enough to help slow down rent rises."
