The Gay UK December 2015 | Page 120

LEGAL CLINIC RENT BOYS - PART ONE It is a fact of modern life – a vast majority of us rent our accommodation. This is the first in a series of articles dealing with your rights as a renter. This week we deal with retaliatory evictions. One of the worst aspects of renting is the lack of stability – private landlords can evict you for no reason. All they have to do is give you two months’ notice (although there are strict rules as to the date on which the notice should expire). Most people would agree that a landlord should be able to evict a tenant when there is unpaid rent, or where the tenant is trashing the property. However, some landlords will evict you on unreasonable grounds. They may try to evict you because you have complained about the property being in a poor state of disrepair. Or they may decide to do so because you are LGBT. Complaining about the property Some landlords may decide to evict a tenant if he or she complains about the state of the rented property. Here we are putting up with dodgy boilers, out of date gas certificates and missing smoke alarms (which are now required by law in rented properties) because we are afraid we may be 120 THEGAYUK | ISSUE 17 | DEC 2015 evicted if we complain. It also means that landlords evict tenants and get new ones in, rather than solving serious faults with the property. All that changed on 1st October this year. Now, a landlord’s ability to evict you for making a complaint about a “hazard” at your rented property is restricted. In order to obtain this protecti