Around half (48%) of UK tenants are currently living with one or more housing disrepair issues such as mould, damp, leaks, electrical hazards, heating and hot water issues or blocked drains, according to a new study.
Tenants aged 18 to 24 are the most likely to be living with an issue (67%), followed by 35- to 44-year-olds (52%).
The city with the most housing disrepair issues was shown to be Nottingham, where six in ten (60%) tenants revealed they are living with one or more issues. This was followed by Bristol (59%), Manchester (58%), Newcastle and Norwich (both 57%) and London (55%).
The survey of 1,000 current UK rental tenants was carried out by law firm Hodge Jones & Allen, which raised concerns that a “high proportion” of renters are living in conditions that “could be unsafe or impact their long-term health”.
While the majority (83%) of tenants revealed that they’ve reported at least one of the issues to their landlord already, 17% had not yet done so.
Of those who said they hadn’t reported the disrepair issue(s) they are living with, a third (36%) said it was “too much hassle”, or they thought there was “no point as nothing would be done about it”.
On average, those who have reported issues saw them fixed in just six days. However, over a quarter (28%) of tenants said they have been waiting six months or more for their issue to be resolved by their landlord or local authority.
Tenants in Norwich have the longest average wait time for a repair to be made (ten days), followed by those in Leeds (nine days) and Liverpool (eight and a half days).
However, tenants in Edinburgh are the most likely to have waited over six months for their disrepair issue to be fixed (67%). By Jerome Smail