What you can do about a bad landlord
If you need to take action or think your landlord is breaking the law, here's what you can do
Updated
In this guide
Three-quarters of private renters in England have endured poor or dangerous conditions in their homes, including mould, broken boilers and electrical hazards, according to Shelter.
The housing charity says that often tenants won’t complain for fear of being evicted. If you are having trouble with your landlord, there are steps you can take to reach a resolution.
Protections are also on their way in the form of the Renters’ Reform Bill. In this article, we will look at:
- When can I complain about my landlord?
- What can I do: a step-by-step guide?
- What support is out there for tenants?
- Will my landlord evict me if I complain?
- What steps must my landlord legally take before they evict me?
Alex, a woman in her 40s from Manchester, was served an eviction the day after making a formal complaint about much-needed repairs in her private rental. Find out more.
Reasons why you might want to complain
1. Your landlord isn’t carrying out necessary repairs.
The property owner has a responsibility to fix any problems in areas ranging from the walls, roof, foundations and electrics, to boilers, pipes, drains, sinks and toilets. If you have no heating or hot water, for example, your landlord must try to carry out the work within a “reasonable time”.
How long that is depends on the urgency of the problem – emergency repairs must be addressed within 24 hours. Find out more about your repair rights.
The landlord must also attend to issues with appliances – although only if they, and not you, provided, say, the washing machine, or the fault lies in the wiring or plug socket.
2. Your home is unfit to live in.
If a problem in your home affects your health, puts you at risk of injury or restricts access to part of the property, it is considered unfit to live in.
This includes rodent infestations, electrical hazards, fire-safety issues and rising damp and mould. With the latter, the tenant has some responsibility, for instance keeping condensation to a minimum by turning on an extractor fan in the bathroom.
However, if the problem is affecting the tenant’s health or safety, or are caused by issues with the property, the landlord has a legal duty to diagnose the problem and have it fixed.
3. There is negligence
If you have suffered illness or injury, or your possessions have been damaged, due to your landlord either not responding to a request for necessary repairs, or doing them badly, you may be able to take legal action against them.
One example of this is breathing difficulties caused by damp that the landlord never addressed after being informed about the health issue.
4. Your landlord tries to raise your rent unfairly
Whether or not a landlord can put up the rent during your tenancy depends on your rental contract.
If you have an “assured shorthold tenancy” agreement – usually for a fixed period of six or 12 months – the rent can only be increased if you agree to it.
How much can a landlord increase rent by?
Longer fixed-term contracts are likely to contain a “rent-review clause” that lets your landlord raise the price during the term of the agreement – perhaps once a year – with notice and in line with market rates. If the contract doesn’t include this clause, your landlord cannot raise the rent without your consent.
For those with a rolling contract, or periodic tenancy, your landlord cannot increase your rent more than once a year without coming to an agreement with you.
5. Your landlord is harassing you
If you think that your landlord has been harassing you, it’s very possible that they have broken the law.
Anything from violence to entering your home without your permission can fit this definition. Shelter lists all forms of possible harassment by a landlord on its website.
Check out our guide on renters’ rights to see all your legal rights as a tenant, including protections for your deposit and against rent increases.
Should you be dealing with an unscrupulous landlord who refuses to take action when they are legally required to, here’s what you can do.
What you can do: a step-by-step guide
1. Check your rental agreement
The contract you signed with your landlord will lay out their duties, including how long they have to respond to repairs, and whether or not they are allowed to increase your rent during your contract.
It’s important to be familiar with the legal protections you have, as specified within the agreement, as these can often lead to a quick and painless solution. For instance, if your fridge breaks down, the contract may specify that the landlord has a duty to replace or repair it within 48 hours.
2. Get evidence of the problem
A vital part of taking effective action against a landlord is documenting as much evidence as you possibly can. If your home is riddled with mould, take photographs of all of it – and if you think it may have made you unwell, visit a GP to try and get a diagnosis.
Do this every couple of days to demonstrate that the problem is ongoing. This, combined with evidence of your contact with the landlord, may be helpful later down the line should the issue be escalated.
If you are forced to fork out to carry out or manage the repairs yourself – for instance, if you have bought cleaning products to deal with mould, or you have had to call out and pay a heating engineer to fix your boiler – keep and photograph all the receipts.
If your landlord is harassing you, document the behaviour as much as you can. For instance, if they are threatening to change the locks, screenshot any messages. If they have been entering the home without your permission, seek legal advice straight away, or contact Citizens Advice or Shelter.
Should this behaviour escalate into an emergency – for instance, if you are threatened with violence – contact the police immediately.
3. Speak to your landlord
Once you have an understanding of your landlord’s legal and contractual responsibilities for repairs and other health-and-safety remedial work, the next step is to contact your landlord.
While private landlords are notorious for a lack of urgency, it’s key to give them a chance to resolve any issues before taking things further.
Contact your landlord by email or text where possible, as this will help you document each attempt you’ve made to do so – which may form evidence later on if you feel you need to make a complaint.
Depending on the nature of the incident, your landlord may have to respond and solve a problem within days; familiarity with your rental agreement will help inform this.
If your landlord is initially slow to respond, it may be worth following up with a phone call or another text or email. If you have found a clause in the contract compelling them to take action, there’s no harm in citing it, and telling them that you look forward to the issue being solved by a certain date.
4. Make a formal complaint to your landlord
If your landlord hasn’t complied within a timeframe appropriate to the nature of the problem, it’s time to write them a letter of formal complaint.
In the letter, explain clearly what the issue is, when it occurred or began – the boiler breaking down or damp appearing, for example – and what steps the landlord must take to resolve it.
Include any evidence you have collected so far, such as photographs of the problem, or a doctor’s note that shows how your health has been affected by it as a result of the landlord’s negligence in not responding to you.
Provide images of any receipts you have accumulated to deal with the problem and attach screenshots of your previous correspondence, including your previous attempts to contact the landlord, plus any broken promises made by them to fix the issue.
It’s worth noting that, unfortunately, some landlords evict tenants following formal complaints, because they would rather find a new tenant than spend money solving problems. Find out more.
5. Complain to your local council or MP about your landlord
If your landlord still hasn’t responded or taken action following a formal complaint, it’s time to escalate things further.
Get in touch with your local council or your MP, providing the same information you included in your original complaint. Make sure to include the landlord’s contact information.
Citizens Advice offers a helpful letter template if you need to make a formal complaint to your local council about outstanding repairs.
If you feel that the issue affecting you is putting your health or safety at risk, it’s worth flagging it with the council’s environmental health department.
The council can send somebody to inspect the problem, and order your landlord to make the necessary repairs. This applies both to private renters and those in social housing.
The issue of excessive damp and mould has recently been in the spotlight following the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who suffered chronic exposure to it. He lived with his family in council housing.
The tragedy has highlighted the dangers that unfit accommodation can pose for tenants. If your rented home is plagued by mould or damp, not taking action could endanger your health.
What support is out there for tenants?
If you’re still struggling with the same issue, get in touch with Citizens Advice, or other charities dedicated to helping renters.
Citizens Advice is an independent charity that helps people in the UK who are battling with debt, housing issues and much more.
While its trained advisers won’t necessarily be able to sort out your problem for you, they can provide invaluable insights into your legal rights, including tools such as template letters if you need to escalate a problem.
They, and other renters’ charities, can also help you take your landlord to court if you have exhausted all other avenues in trying to get essential remedial work carried out.
A successful fight in the courts could result in the landlord being ordered to carry out the repairs, to pay compensation – with the amount you get depending on the severity of the problem, such as whether you have suffered health issues due to a landlord’s inaction – and to reimburse some or all of your legal costs. That said, of course, you could lose the case, and with it, your own legal costs and court fees.
Successful legal battles often rely on solid evidence – a key reason to document everything meticulously.
Charities to which tenants can turn include:
Will my landlord evict me if I complain?
Unfortunately, it’s a possibility.
While some tenants are protected against a section 21 no-fault eviction – also known as a retaliatory or revenge eviction – landlords can, and often do, turf out tenants at the end of fixed-term or rolling contracts without having to give a reason.
Fortunately, no-fault evictions could be banned under the provisions of the forthcoming Renters’ Reform Bill. Learn more about the contents of the bill.
How much notice does a landlord have to give to evict a tenant?
A section 21 no-fault eviction notice allows landlords to evict tenants with just two months’ notice, and they don’t need to provide a good reason.
Alex (real name withheld), in her 40s, was served a section 21 no-fault eviction by her letting agent in March 2022. She had been renting the Manchester property for 15 years, living there with her child.
Alex had complained about long-standing disrepair, including a broken washing machine and a gas hob that had failed multiple safety checks. The eviction notice came the next day.
“I had to pay for everything in the house, because the landlord never responded to me. I had to pay for a fridge, a kitchen table. Every year I wanted to go on a nice holiday with my child, but we couldn’t [because I had to pay for so many things that the landlord should have fixed or replaced].
“Eventually, I’d had enough. I’d been there so long and spent so much, I couldn’t pay for everything.”
However, Alex wishes she’d never made the complaint. After appealing against the first eviction notice, she was served with another in December. She has until February to find a new home, but has been so far unable to do so as her salary doesn’t meet the requirements for many private lets.
Manchester City Council have put her on a waiting list for a council home, but it could take five years for her to be allocated one.
As it stands, Alex is in serious danger of ending up homeless. Shelter is trying to help her either overturn the eviction or secure a new home.
“The Renters’ Reform Bill is good news, but for many it won’t be here in time”
For Alex, and many others, the Renters’ Reform Bill is arriving too late.
“It was meant to happen in October – why has it been pushed back so much? Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to it,” she says. “It won’t just help me, but many others
“At the moment, we have no voice – nobody is listening. The bill means we will be safe – it’s the best thing that can happen to us.”
According to Shelter, a private renter in England is served with a section 21 no-fault eviction every seven minutes.
If you too are frustrated that the Renters’ Reform Bill may not come before parliament until May, contact your local MP. Ask that they make an attempt to speed up the process.
If your landlord does serve an eviction notice, they must follow the legal steps, and it can take months.
Steps your landlord must take before they can lawfully evict you
- They must give you at least two months’ notice.
- If you do not leave when the notice period ends, your landlord must obtain a court order to evict you. They are not allowed to do so themselves. They have up to four months from the end date of the two-month notice period to apply for a court order.
- You can only be evicted by bailiffs appointed by the court, who must give you at least two weeks’ notice before they do so.
If you believe your landlord is evicting you because you have made a complaint, Citizens Advice may be able to help you challenge this.
As soon as you receive an eviction notice, you can contact your local authority, which may be able to find council accommodation for you.
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