Baroness Alicia Kennedy, director of the Generation Rent group, is warning that millions of tenants may not be able to pay their rent this coming winter following energy price hikes.

The group claims that a survey it has conducted shows 45 per cent of private renters who had lived in their home for longer than a year had been asked for a higher rent at some point. 

Of those, 81 per cent are paying what their landlord asked for, with 14 per cent having negotiated a lower rent.

Generation Rent claims 20 per cent of those who faced a rent increase in their current tenancy were asked to pay more than £100 extra per month; some 13 per cent allegedly chose to move out.

People who faced a rent increase are more likely to be most concerned about paying the rent (32 per cent) compared with paying energy bills, than those who have not had a rent rise (20 per cent). 

Well over 40 per cent of tenants – whether or not their rent had risen – described fuel price hikes as their biggest concern. 

People getting state support with their rent have been more likely to have been asked to pay more rent in the past year, despite Local Housing Allowance being frozen since March 2020. Generation Rent says 46 per cent of private renters on benefits who responded to the survey were asked to pay more compared with 43 per cent of private renters not receiving benefits.

“With energy bills about to shoot up once again, renters cannot afford to be blindsided by an increase in their rent. The country faces the real prospect of millions of people being unable to find the money to cover rent, heat their homes comfortably and put food on the table. Renters are terrified, knowing they face a winter of destitution” says Baroness Kennedy. 

“Ultimately that will lead to a further rise in evictions and homelessness. The government must intervene and temporarily stop landlords from raising the rent, as well as pausing evictions to keep renters in their homes.”

Her group wants the government to protect renters from in-tenancy rent increases by freezing rents on existing tenancies, suspend no-fault evictions, and making all other evictions discretionary, “to stop people who fall into arrears for reasons beyond their control from being made homeless.”