The campaign group Generation Rent says it is “concerned” about what it sees as a strikingly low level of enforcement action taken by councils against private landlords.
According to The Guardian, around two-thirds of local authorities in England have not brought a single prosecution against a landlord in the past three years, despite receiving an estimated 300,000 tenant complaints.
Between 2022 and 2024, almost half of councils responsible for housing did not issue a single fine, and more than a third took no formal action at all against landlords operating unlawfully in the private rented sector. The newspaper reports that just 640 landlords were prosecuted and 4,702 civil penalty notices were issued—less than 2% of the number of complaints lodged by tenants.
Only 16 landlords were banned from letting property during that period, eight of whom were based in London.
A Generation Rent spokesperson told the paper: “It’s really concerning. Councils simply don’t have the resources to enforce, leaving landlords across the country failing to meet their obligations and renters living in awful conditions that damage their physical and mental health.”
A spokesperson for the Renters Reform Coalition, a network of campaign groups led by Generation Rent, added: “Legislation without enforcement is just paperwork. The new Renters’ Rights Act should give renters important protections, but for it to work the government must provide councils with the funding needed to enforce it and hold criminal landlords to account.”
In response to The Guardian’s freedom of information requests, 252 councils reported issuing a combined £26.4 million in fines to private landlords between 2022 and 2024—despite the relatively small number of formal cases.
Late last week, the government announced an additional £18 million in “burdens funding” to help councils prepare to enforce the Renters’ Rights Act.
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