Won’t someone please think of the landlords?

Welcome to Plague Island, where our government is mired in corruption and our monarchy literally condones (alleged) abuse. We’re also in the midst of a cost of living crisis which is proving devastating to the most vulnerable and marginalised groups in our society: it’s affecting the working class, who are being forced to decide between food or internet. It’s affecting students, who are struggling to pay rent. It’s affecting people from Black, Asian, and ethnic minority backgrounds, as these groups face disproportionately high living costs anyway due to the ‘poverty premium’ and being over-represented in poorly paid work. And – whip out your tiny violins – it’s affecting landlords, too.

In response to the current economic uncertainty, an increasing number of landlords are insisting that their tenants provide a guarantor (often coming in the form of a well-off parent). According to new data from lettings platform Goodlord, the number of landlords asking for a guarantor has risen by 36 per cent in four years. It’s not uncommon for landlords to request a guarantor for students, but the figures from Goodlord show that 730,000 tenants being asked to provide a guarantor are non-students. 2020 saw the highest rise in landlords requesting guarantors, with a 27 per cent increase – unsurprisingly so, given the economic fallout of the pandemic. Essentially, as tenants lost their jobs and faced unprecedented financial challenges, landlords thought: “what about me?????”

Landlords asking tenants to provide guarantors makes things even more difficult for renters trying to navigate the hellscape that is the UK rental market. For some, finding a guarantor is impossible: most landlords ask that a tenant’s guarantor earns between 30 to 40 times the monthly rent, and as the UK's average rent is now £968 per home, the average tenant could be asked to find a guarantor who earns at least £29,040. According to the DWP, 22 per cent of the population are in “relative low income”, meaning that a significant number of people would struggle to find a suitable guarantor. As it stands, legally, a landlord can refuse to let a property to someone who is unable to provide a guarantor.

As if this wasn’t distressing enough, rent now accounts for 37 per cent of gross income for a single earner and on average, rents have risen 12 per cent in the past five years. The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed private rents have risen by two per cent in the 12 months leading up to January – the largest annual growth rate since February 2017. This extortionate rise in rent combined with the increasing number of landlords insisting on tenants providing guarantors means that access to affordable housing is becoming more and more difficult – especially for people on low incomes. 

Sickeningly, the ONS also revealed that the average UK house prices increased by 10.8 per cent in the year up to December 2021, meaning that the average UK house price was £275,000 at the end of 2021 – £27,000 higher than at the same point in 2020. Basically, homeowners and landlords are getting richer and richer, while getting on the property ladder remains a pipe dream for tenants.

Speaking to Dazed, a spokesperson from tenants’ union Acorn said: “At a time when availability of housing is falling and people are struggling to front increasing costs to move into a house or keep up with their rent, a guarantors requirement means access to housing is being limited to even fewer people.”

“With rising house prices, runaway rents and a growing cost of living crisis, we need genuine solutions to help people who are struggling, and not further barriers to stop people accessing housing.”

“The guarantee that is needed is a guarantee from the Government that they will act to make housing secure and affordable by legislating to improve renting security through ending no fault evictions and introducing rent controls to ensure spiralling prices are kept in check.”