New Survey Shows That Majority Of
Private Rental Sector Tenants Are Happy

A recent survey has discovered that 59% of PRS tenants are more than satisfied with the fair rental price of their rented property and many tenants have a good relationship with their landlords.

The survey carried out by AXA Business Insurance, appears to disprove the recent claims made by the homelessness charity, Shelter, who allege that most tenants in private rented sector properties are living in poor conditions whilst being charged exorbitant rental prices to live there. The charity maintain that damp, mould, and bad ventilation in private rented sector properties cause asthma, allergies, breathing problems and worse among tenants. Shelter have not disclosed any information regarding tenant lifestyles or habits that may be contributing factors to the complaints and the organisation are laying the blame squarely on landlords shoulders.

Landlords have a duty of care to provide tenants with safe and habitable environments to live in and many landlords use specialist insurance policies to help protect their tenant’s financial interests as well as ensuring a continuous rental income.Tenants Liability insurance covers damage caused to rental property up to the value of £2,500 (GBP) for just £60 per year, as damage caused to fixtures and fittings within a rental property are the tenants responsibility to repair, or the landlord is entitled to make deductions from the tenant’s deposit funds to cover the costs. This can have serious consequences for tenants who need to move property as they could find themselves struggling to raise enough money for another deposit.

Landlords can also offer tenants the option to secure rental payments, guaranteeing that the rent will continue to be paid should the tenants circumstances change suddenly. Rent Protection insurance is a Win-Win for both landlord and tenant as it can ease financial worries for both parties.

The survey found that:

• 46% of tenants claim that they have a good relationship with their landlord
• 30% of tenants described their landlord as fair
• 23% of tenants said their landlords were helpful
• 20% of tenants claimed their landlords were responsible people
• 19% described their landlord as trustworthy
• 15% of tenants described their landlords as being caring
• 6% of tenants said that they had a bad relationship with their landlord.
• 2% of tenants claimed their landlord was creepy
• 3% of tenants said they thought their landlord was seedy
• 3% of tenants said they thought their landlord was dishonest

Managing Director of AXA Business Insurance, Darrell Sansom, said: “There’s clearly a lot of goodwill between landlords and their tenants and our research shows that rental home horror stories and negative stereotypes are few and far between. We know that more and more people are slipping into the landlord role through circumstance rather than design, and it seems that despite a positive approach and good intentions, many are simply not aware of all of their safety responsibilities”.

However, the AXA research did reveal that there is room for landlords to make improvements in many private rented sector homes when it comes to tenant safety:

• 40% of private rented sector landlords were found to have failed to arrange an annual gas safety check in their rental properties.
• 54% of private rented sector landlords have not installed a smoke detector or fire alarm in their rental properties.
• 70% of private rented sector landlords have failed to fit a carbon monoxide alarm in their rental properties – This becomes a legal requirement from October 2015.

AXA say that their findings should help dispel some of the common myths and stereotypes that surround the UK’s private rental sector (PRS) and with more landlords utilising specialist insurance policies and the wide range of other specially designed products and services to safeguard their livelihood, the future of renting in the private sector looks better for tenants.

This was written by Mike Clarke. Posted on at 10:30 am. Filed under Insurance. Tagged allergies, asthma, AXA, bad ventilation, blame, breathing problems, business, change of circumstance, charity, claims, clients, consequences, cost, damage, damp, deductions, default, deposit, duty of care, environment, expense, financial worries, fittings, fixtures, funds, GBP, habitable, happy, homelessness, housing, insurance, landlord, landlords, money, mould, payments, poor conditions, private rental sector, property, prs, relationship, rent, rent protection, rental, rental payments, rented, renting, repairs, safe, Safety, satisfied, secure, Shelter, survey, tenant, tenants, tenants liability, UK. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.