The latest rent rise figure produced by the government has triggered an angry response from one of Britain’s top agents.

Greg Tsuman, current president of ARLA Propertymark and the director of lettings at the Martyn Gerrard agency, has made his comments following government figures showing an average 5.7 per cent rent rise over the past year across Britain, and with London having the highest increase since 2006 at 6.2 per cent annually.

Tsuman says: “We suspect this trend to continue as a clear consequence of three key factors: rising interest rates, lack of supply and Section 24 of the Finance Act. Together, they are creating an explosion in rent inflation, which unfortunately is set to get worse.

“George Osborne’s policy with the Finance Act was intended to protect tenants and enable to them to save for a deposit for their own home. Instead, it has harmed the very people it was meant to protect. No tenant today would say it is easier to save for a deposit now than it was in 2016. Home ownership is further away than ever for tenants. Instead, many are finding that their rental prospects are now in jeopardy as well.

“As a result of the full rollout of Section 24 in 2021, landlords must pay taxes on their turnover rather than just their profits, meaning they’re being taxed on their costs including interest payments, which are spiralling. This additional burden couldn’t have come at a worse time, and it has created a perfect storm that is driving landlords out of the private rental sector.”

Tsuman says the reality of all this is that some landlords are seeing their monthly payments increasing threefold.

“Ultimately, this is creating misery for tenants, with many unable to pay the higher rents that will be passed onto them as landlords cover costs. Other landlords who are unable or unwilling to pass on these rent increases are simply selling up and exiting the market altogether, reducing an already insufficient supply of rental properties.

“Lack of supply has been weighing heavily on the market with affordable two-bedroom properties attracting as many as 80 enquiries from desperate tenants. The situation is pushing renters to move to more affordable areas, creating a ripple effect on prices as people leave urban centres for the suburbs. Trends in the city are reverberating outwards.

“As renters are forced to move and sign new leases, this creates another factor contributing to rental increases. This is because these statistics also include renewals, which are lower than new rentals. Essentially, renewals are contaminating these statistics, masking the true extent of the increase in market rents. As more tenancies are coming to an end from landlords being forced to sell, the jump in rents that these tenants are facing is significantly higher than these figures capture.”