Renters like Natasha will no longer be scared of complaining about damp in case they’re evicted

When a section 21 eviction notice dropped through Christina’s letterbox late last year, it sparked months of turmoil for her and her family. It won’t seem to end.

She has been living in the home just outside of London with her husband and two children for nine years. They have put down roots in their local community, while their daughter attends the local school. But all of a sudden, with a click of their landlord’s fingers, the family was forced to consider uprooting their lives.

Christina describes this prospect as “causing huge emotional strain”. She wants to stay in the same area so her daughter doesn’t have to move schools but rents have risen so much in the last decade that they can’t find somewhere affordable.

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At the end of their two months notice, they still didn’t have anywhere to go. Thankfully the landlord gave Christina and her family some more time, but issued another eviction notice just last week, plunging the family back into uncertainty.

Homes are the foundations of our lives, but evictions shatter those foundations. Someone approaches a local council as homeless every 21 minutes due to section 21 evictions, which allow a landlord to turf out a tenant for no reason at just two months’ notice.

That is why I’m delighted that today marks a new era for private renters across England. The Renters’ Rights Act is finally being put into action. The new law is a vital step towards re-balancing power between renters and landlords, with the headline being the scrapping of section 21 evictions.

Not only have these types of evictions been a major cause of homelessness, they’ve also prevented renters from raising concerns with landlords. When a renter called Natasha moved into a one-bedroom flat in South London, she was excited to live on her own for the first time and create a haven to come back to after her busy and stressful job working with disadvantaged young people.

But not long after moving in, she noticed the carpeted floor felt wet. Then she noticed severe damp on the wall in her bedroom which ran like a rash from the corner of the room all the way up the ceiling. When she told the letting agent, they advised her to open the windows and buy a dehumidifier.

But the damp was so bad that she started getting eczema and her chest felt tight at night. She reported the issue to the local council who sent someone round to measure the moisture in the air, recording a reading which was double the limit of what would have been safe. Natasha complained to the letting agent again and the landlord hit back with a section 21 eviction notice. She had been in the home for just four months.

WIth experiences like Natasha’s, it’s no wonder nearly half of renters with issues in their home have not made a complaint to their landlord or letting agent, with many stating they would be more likely to do so if they knew they couldn’t be evicted as a result. Instead we’re forced to live with hazards like damp and mould for fear of the alternative being to have no home at all.

The end of ‘no reason’ section 21 evictions will change this. A landlord will only be able to evict a tenant, outside of rent arrears or anti-social behaviour, if they want to sell the home, or move themselves or a family member in. If they do evict for these reasons, they will have to give four months’ notice and be banned from re-letting the home for a year, meaning private renters in England now have better protection from eviction than their counterparts in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Generation Rent was formed back a dozen years ago to end unfair evictions. It’s been a long and winding road since then, but the Renters’ Rights Act is finally a recognition that many people will be locked into private renting for all of their lives, and we all deserve better.

As Christina says, “evictions are devastating for renters like me. We should have the security to know we can’t be turfed out of our homes on a whim.”

Ben Twomey is chief executive of Generation Rent

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