Millions of Private Renters Putting Up With Substandard Homes

A third of private rented homes in England are failing decency standards according to a new report. Thirty-three per cent of the country’s private rented homes would have failed the government’s Decent Homes Standard (the test for social housing introduced in 2000) in 2012, according to analysis in the CIH UK Housing Review 2014. In contrast, just 15 per cent of social rented homes failed to meet the standard in 2012, down from 29 per cent in 2006. According to latest figures from the English Housing Survey, in 2012-13 the private rented sector overtook the social rented sector to become the second biggest tenure in England (after home ownership.) There are four million private rented households in the country (18 per cent of all households) compared with 3.7 million social rented households (17 per cent). Read more on the CIH website.