Housing Secretary Michael Gove is urging tenants to complain about sub-standard housing with the government’s ‘Make Things Right’ advertising campaign.
Social housing residents are being encouraged to make a complaint to their landlord in the first instance and then escalating to the Housing Ombudsman if they are unhappy with the landlord’s final response.
The national campaign will see advertisements using images of black mould and leaking ceilings run across social media platforms including neighbourhood app NextDoor and on radio stations and streaming platforms like Spotify in several languages.
The campaign will also fund training for Citizens Advice staff in two pilot areas – London and the North West.
Gove says: “Too many social housing tenants are being let down and ignored. This government is determined to stand up for them and give them a proper voice. They deserve a decent, safe and secure home, just like everybody else.
“So we are shining a light on rogue landlords that ignore their tenants time and again and allow families to live in disrepair. This campaign will make sure tenants know their rights and how to make a complaint – giving them the confidence to go to the Ombudsman and ensure action is taken.”
Findings from the government’s social housing resident panel – bringing together over 200 residents across the country – has found that 65 per cent of members said their experiences of raising complaints with their landlord had been unsatisfactory.
Some of the key issues residents raised include the time taken for complaints to be addressed and resolved; disrespectful conduct, lack of communication, or inaccuracy of information experienced during previous complaints process; lack of repercussions for landlords if residents are not taken seriously or complaints are not resolved satisfactorily; burden and complexity of the complaints process.
The Housing Secretary has also today demanded answers from Lambeth Council about its failure to handle complaints, following a severe maladministration finding from the Housing Ombudsman earlier this month calling for radical improvements on damp and mould and complaint handling. This comes a year after the publication of a special report into Lambeth following numerous complaint handling failure orders.
The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says almost a third of all social renters considered making a complaint in 2020-21, but 27 per cent chose not to because they thought nothing would be done in response.
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They could always save up….. and BUY their own if they’re not happy. 🏡
Whatever happened to Levelling Up??? His department is even called it but it’s all one sided.
Tenants grow mould out of ignorance and laziness. They don’t care it’s not their property you fix it. If not I’ll claim compensation.
Mr Michael Gove still on the band wagon creating homeless with him utmost ability.
He is one of the main causes of homelessnesses in the Country and deliberately so, pushing for removal of Section 21 and the un fairer White Paper he is the instigator of.
Telling Tenants to complain about their landlords driving the wedge further in divide and conquer, inciting hatred shame on you.
It’s been well established by the millions of landlords that the main cause of Black Mould is the Tenants themselves and fair to say by some cultures more than others.
Tell the Tenants to complain about the landlords or find an isolated case and blow it up all over the media then use it as excuse to change the law.
I have no doubt many Social Tenants won’t be complaining, there not going to draw attention to themselves and see who extra they have staying there paying half they rent or sub-letting have an occasional airb&b type income.
There are no leaking Ceilings they don’t leak.
The Bathrooms above get misused, most are directly designed this way to facilitate the plumbing, water runs down.
Tell the neighbour directly above his misuse is causing you a problem.
Yes some cultures more than others as I have experienced too.
Wow! To blame one person, one has to ask why. Section 21 under debate for years and started by the tenant action group. I love being an enforcement officer because I love landlords that remind me why I do this job. Thank god not all landlords are the same and we have landlords that appreciate tenants are paying their investments.
And thank god not all tenants are the same Yonnette !
I am a letting agent of 26 years, this last 12 months had show me that tenant have no respect for the Landord’s property.
They are over the moon when moving into a clean house.
They leave it’s dirty, the radiators have airs hooked to them, ( not allowed to dry clothes on radiators)
They don’t open windows. ( signs of black mould around the windows )
Heating ( boiler is off) temperature in house is (7c)
And this government is at war with the landlords
( why are they hell bent on getting shut of the private landlords?)
So far 88% of tenants are applying are not born in this country, they are allowed to come here and dictate, most are health care workers Nigerian and Indian!
Demanding the house for the family to come over and live here.
What about this amount of stress our staff have to undertake when dealing with non uk residents.
( can’t speak English, don’t undertake written words, don’t understand how to use taps, drains, w.c, plumbing, the heating, we are spending hours to educate how to live in a house) is that a job of the letting agent?
No it blood well isn’t !
They can shout at you though, when they flood the bathroom using a pop up wast button !
Government has destroyed Great Britain and that why Landords are selling up !
Very well said. I have one up at the moment, must have had four dozen applicants and apart from one I’m moving forward with the others I’ve simply rejected for some of the reasons you mention. I’d prefer to just leave it empty than have the agro that goes with so many looking for housing out there. Let’s face it the only real power we have left is selection.
Best post this year. Absolutely spot on. This new found entitlement is to be found from majority of these applicants
Sounds like Rising Damp
I would encourage tenants to report faults. The genuine faults can be fixed and the sooner the better to prevent damage to the property. Problems with damp due to poor ventilation, drying washing indoors etc then landlord can provide advice which if ignored then it's time to find new tenants. So there is no need to escalate to a complaint. Either the problem gets fixed or the tenants need to move on. Does mean some tenants will never sustain a tenancy unless they learn how to live in a property without causing black mould to appear, which was never there before they moved in.
Not so easy “ just to find another tenant”! Getting them out appears to be harder and harder now.
Here we go again..... Zzzzzzzzz
What the substance of the message contains, i.e. to report defects, is just obvious common sense. However it should be balanced against the 83 % of tenants who are satisfied.
The problem lies with the useless Regulator [sic] of Social Housing - the Govt's quango for regulating social housing.
There are far more draconian powers against PRS landlords and this is an example of NOT Levelling up.
I rented a flat for the first time whilst waiting to buy a property. It was clean and freshly painted, but after a few weeks the mould started to appear despite my leaving the windows open. I was told the landlord just painted over the mould when he needed a new tenant.
I could hear my neighbour coughing through the wall, but at Christmas it went quiet and I thought he had gone away. In fact he was lying dead of respiratory problems the other side of the wall. I began coughing and began to fear for my health too , so decided to leave immediately. The landlord would would not return my deposit without several months notice. I took him to court , where he lied and contradicted himself.
The judge said he wasn’t responsible for maintenance and dismissed the case. The landlord was a councillor and it was a small town where he was no doubt known to the judge. I very much suspect Freemasonry!
I have also been a landlord and my last tenant and children did £4000 worth of damage. I got a court judgement against her, but never received a penny as she was on benefits.
So there are good and bad on both sides!
Mould
This is mostly caused by homeowners or tenants who have no idea how to live in a property.
They are scared to death to open a window a little whilst using a bath or shower.
So what do they do?
They basically seal the property from letting the steam out, turn up the radiators to dry clothes on.
Then they wonder why they get mould growing.
Then they moan at the LL
I have written into all my contracts that when the property is let it is mould free and any mould caused by incorrectly heating/ventilation and drying clothes on radiators etc will be chargeable to the tenant and they could be evicted if they cause damage to my property this way.
Isn’t it strange that people who own their own property rarely have issues with mould.
That’s because they very quickly learn that mould is costly to themselves.
Another reason that the government are trying to dump on the LL and another reason for LLs selling up.
Joni. I had a couple of those for substantial sums in the past, very few pays those judgements which is why I given up on Court system, it adds insult to injury and paid £1700. + vat Solicitors fees for the privilege, its all I could have done under the circumstances with S.21 but got my property back at least, now we are going to be denied that right.
Drove past one of mine yesterday that had reported black mould yesterday EVERY WINDOW TIGHTLY CLOSED
In fairness it is pretty cold this week!
Install window vents - glue them permanently open
We are talking a bedroom, no reason that window cannot be open on a cold day, there are window vents but they aren't enough, the lady has been there 3 yrs without problem until now, her teenage daughter has moved in with her, I think an increase in rent is due as there are now 2 adults there that might be enough to see the back of them without going down the eviction route
Make things right
Sack Gove for starters , might as well replace him with a speak your weight machine
The one saving grace, if you listen to the whole advert, is that it is aimed (at the moment) at social landlords.
Maybe, but private sector tenants will not hear social landlords, just landlords.
Seems my reply has been taken down, wonder who I upset, I only told it as it is, the truth, maybe to some the truth hurts. Clare you are of course right
What about a government campaign to educate tenants on how to avoid mould.
If there is something wrong with the property I'd rather know sooner than later, but a lot of things are not the landlords fault, like the tenant consistently being out when the workmen come round, or damp/mould caused by tenant conduct, or mice getting in.
Strange thing is Michael Gove & co make much about how terrible section 21 is, implying it must be abolished and should never have existed, yet it was the Tory party's messiah Margaret Thatcher that first introduced it, the reason being property owners back then were reluctant in the extreme to let without a cast a cast iron guarantee of regaining vacant possession when needed or wanted. Little has changed towards letting in the thinking of today's property owners yet Michael Gove seems blind to the fact that today's property owners aren't so different from yesteryears property owners and will not let their property without the safeguard of regaining vacant possession when needed or wanted. Perhaps worth a mention also that the Labour's Messiah's Tony & Gordon were in power for 13 years 1997- 2010 and chose in that time to make zero alteration to PRS but did wave through the insane freedom of movement within the EU policy, resulting in UK population rising by approx 500,000 year on year and hence Brexit but not before creating the present housing crisis that is of course all the fault of those nasty greedy landlords.
All very true. I have also noted Blair and Brown left well enough alone.
It doesn't help that Theresa May employed Toby Lloyd who was Shelter's chief policy adviser as her own. With people like that writing government policy what can we expect but a load of anti landlord lefty tripe.
I was refurbing a house a few weeks ago - the tenant amongst other things thought it was a good idea to play golf in the lounge - and got chatting with a local resident from social housing. He told me a family up the road in a completely run down social house - cr*p all over fron garden - cars in bits etc - had managed to get 3 new kitchens in 3 years as they destroyed them.. A maintenance bloke had also said the way to get a new front door was break the existing one! Its a broken system with no accountability
And yet nothing happens to these people. They can't be controlled. We can't fine them imprison them, gas or shoot them. They are society's problem. Best it's not a personal landlord problem.
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