Meet the tenants being forced from their homes by soaring rents in the UK
-Private renters already struggling with food and fuel prices are being hit hard as landlords raise prices in London and nationwide

英国那些因房租飞涨而被迫离开住所的房客众生相
——由于伦敦和全国各地的房东提高了房价，原本就在为食品和燃料价格苦苦挣扎的个体租房者受到了沉重打击


（Estate agents report increased competition among renters in the UK market.）

（房地产中介报告称，英国市场上租房者之间的竞争加剧。）
新闻：

Margaret Perry wants to buy a house one day. But the increases in her energy, water and council tax bills over the past few weeks have dented her ability to save. Then, on Easter Monday, her landlord called to say the monthly rent on her shared house was going up by £500.

玛格丽特·佩里想有一天买一栋房子。但在过去几周，她的能源、水和市政税账单的增加削弱了她的储蓄能力。然后，在复活节星期一，她的房东打电话说，她合租的房子的月租金上涨了500英镑。

Instead of £675 a month, plus bills, for her room in Haringey, north London, her rent would rise to £825 – a 22% increase. “That’s just not an option,” said Perry, who earns about £30,000 a year and lives with two friends. “It’s hard enough as it is.”

她住在伦敦北部哈林盖，每月房租675英镑，外加账单，房租将涨到825英镑，涨幅22%。佩里说：“这是不可接受的。”佩里年收入约3万英镑，和两个朋友合住在一起。“这已经够难的了。”

The 31-year-old screenwriter is one of a growing number of tenants being priced out by rising rents.

这位31岁的影视编剧是越来越多因房租上涨而被拒之门外的租客之一。

Over the past month, online searches for “rent increase” and “landlord put rent up” reached an all-time high in the UK, according to Google trends data – and average private rents have surged nationally compared with pre-pandemic levels.

谷歌趋势数据显示，过去一个月，“房租上涨”和“房东推高房租”的在线搜索量在英国达到了历史最高水平，全国私人平均租金与疫情前水平相比飙升。

“More people have had their rent increased over the past month or so than we’d normally see,” said Anny Cullum, policy officer at renters’ unx Acorn. “That may be landlords worried about the cost of living and passing that on to their tenants. Food prices are going up, fuel’s going up, energy’s going up and people are really feeling the squeeze.”

“过去一个月左右，房租上涨的人比我们通常看到的要多，”租户联盟Acorn的政策官员安妮·卡勒姆说。“这可能是房东担心生活成本，并将其转嫁给租户。食品价格上涨，燃料价格上涨，能源价格上涨，人们真的感觉到了压力。”

Government guidance says that for existing tenants, rent rises must be “fair and realistic”, in line with “average local rents” – but there is no cap on how much they can charge.

政府指导意见称，对现有租户来说，租金上涨必须“公平、现实”，与“当地平均租金”保持一致——但对于租金上限却没有规定。

Proposed changes can be challenged at a rent tribunal. But for many, like Perry, “the stress of that doesn’t feel worth it”. Between January 2019 and August 2021, just 341 rent tribunal cases were heard nationally, according to the campaign group Generation Rent. And even if tenants win, they can still be kicked out if the landlord serves a ‘section 21 notice’, initiating a no-fault eviction.

拟议的租金变更可以在租金法庭上提出质疑。但对于像佩里这样的许多人来说，“这种压力感觉不值得（起诉）”。据活动组织“租房一代”称，2019年1月至2021年8月，全国仅审理了341起租金法庭案件。即使租户赢了，如果房东发动“取回房屋使用权条文”，启动无过错驱逐，他们仍然可以被赶出去。

Perry and her housemates tried to challenge the rent rise directly with the landlord, offering to pay £70 extra on top of their current monthly rent of £2,350: “We wrote a strongly worded email saying: ‘We’re not paying this.’ But he replied: ‘I’ll evict you’.”

佩里和她的室友们试图直接向房东挑战房租上涨，提出在目前2350英镑的月租基础上再支付70英镑：“我们写了一封措辞强硬的电子邮件，说：‘我们不会付这笔钱的。’而他回答说：‘我要赶走你们。’”

The three friends cannot afford the extra £500, so face being uprooted. “It’s exhausting and stressful. It feels like, as renters, we’re 100% disposable. You see somewhere as your home and you bed in, and then one phone call can take that away.”

这三个朋友负担不起额外的500英镑，因此面临着被“连根拔起”的命运。“这让人精疲力尽，压力很大。感觉就像，作为租客，我们是100%一次性的。你把某个地方看作自己的家，你睡觉的地方，结果一个电话（房东）就可以把它收回去。”

In 2020 and early 2021, demand for city centre properties – particularly in London – plummeted as pandemic restrictions bit. But now the cost of renting privately is climbing in the capital and nationally, with prices in every region above what they were pre-Covid, according to the property website Zoopla.

在2020年和2021年初，由于疫情限制措施受到影响，对市中心房产的需求大幅下降，尤其是在伦敦。但现在，根据房地产网站Zoopla的数据，在首都和全国范围内，私人租房的成本正在攀升，每个地区的价格都高于新冠疫情之前的水平。

In February, the average monthly rent was £984, up 8.8% versus March 2020 – with the steepest increase in the south west, which has seen a rise of 15%.

今年2月，平均月租金为984英镑，比2020年3月上涨了8.8%，其中西南部涨幅最大，上涨了15%。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Chestertons, a London letting agency serving some of the capital’s most sought-after areas, said the average monthly rent for its properties in 2022 so far was £2,864 – up 22% compared with 2019’s figure of £2,348 a month.

Chestertons是一家服务于伦敦一些最受欢迎地区的租赁公司，该公司表示，2022年到目前为止，其房屋的平均月租金为2864英镑，比2019年的2348英镑每月上涨了22%。

For prospective tenants, it means extra competition for properties. “They can be very creative because obviously they want to stand out,” said Richard Davies, head of lettings. “We’ve seen examples where people put a presentation together or create their own mini webpage, with a profile of their pet and photographs of what food they like cooking. One couple talked about how they met.”

对于潜在的租户来说，这意味着对房产的额外竞争。租赁主管理查德·戴维斯表示：“他们可以非常有创意，因为显然他们想要脱颖而出。我们已经看到一些例子，人们把一个演示放在一起，或者创建自己的迷你网页，上面有他们宠物的简介和他们喜欢烹饪的食物的照片。一对夫妇谈到了他们是如何相遇的。”

In Manchester, another rental hotspot, graphic design student Chris Coppen has decided to stay put despite a “mad increase” in his rent.

在曼彻斯特——另一个租房热点，平面设计专业的学生克里斯·科本决定留在原地，尽管房租“疯狂上涨”。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The 29-year-old, who lives with his partner and two housemates in Salford, works in retail and has just seen his pay increase by 6.8% – from £9.18 an hour to £9.80.

29岁的他和他的伴侣以及两名室友住在索尔福德，从事零售业，刚刚看到自己的工资上涨了6.8%，从每小时9.18英镑涨到了9.80英镑。

But in March, he learned that the rent for the house where he has lived for three years will be rising by a third, increasing his share by £112.50 a month. “I nearly choked on my Cheerios,” he said. “I was like: ‘That can’t be legal, surely?’”

但在今年3月，他得知他住了三年的房子的租金将上涨三分之一，他每个月的份额将增加112.5英镑。“我差点被麦圈噎死，”他说。“我当时想：‘这肯定不合法吧？’”

The landlord has also demanded £519 in additional deposit. But they really don’t want to leave – and other properties in the area have also risen in price. “We’ve made a life here,” Coppen said. “So even with the mad increase, to uproot all that would be a lot of mental toil and financial strain that we don’t need while we’re studying.

房东还要求519英镑的额外押金。但他们真的不想离开，而且该地区其他房产的价格也在上涨。“我们在这里生活，” 科本说。“所以即使是疯狂的上涨，选择‘连根拔起’也将成为我们在学习时所不需要的大量精神劳动和经济压力。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


“If we moved out we’d have to pay the same to get less than we currently have. So we’ve just had to take it, really. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’ll make it work.”

“如果我们搬出去，我们必须支付同样的钱，而且得到的比现在更少。所以我们不得不接受它，真的。我不知道我们该怎么做，但我们会想办法应付过去的。”

Julie Clark, 33, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, meanwhile, received an email recently saying the rent for the terrace house she moved into in June 2020 would be rising by £50 a month, from £600 to £650 – despite rotten floorboards and a broken boiler.

与此同时，来自萨福克郡洛斯特的33岁的朱莉·克拉克最近收到一封电子邮件，称她于2020年6月搬进的排屋租金将上涨50英镑，从600英镑涨到650英镑，尽管地板腐烂，锅炉也坏了。

She and her partner, who works in the public sector, successfully negotiated it down to £25. But for Clark, who claims universal credit, even that rise seems unmanageable on top of rising energy costs, food and clothes for her two young children.

她和在公共部门工作的伴侣成功地将涨幅降到了25英镑。但对克拉克来说，即使是这样的上涨，加上能源、食品和她两个年幼孩子的衣服价格的上涨，似乎也难以应付。

“We were already on the verge before any of this happened. All it takes is for anything else to go up and we’ll be really stuck,” she said. “There’s no safety or security.”

“在这一切发生之前，我们已经处在危机的边缘了。只需要其他东西上涨，我们就真的难了，”她说。“没有安全保障。”

Campaigners say greater protection is needed – including caps on rent increases in line with median wage rises, or a three-year freeze on increases for existing tenants.

活动人士表示，需要更多的保护措施——包括限制租金上涨，使其与工资上涨中值保持一致，或冻结现有租户三年的租金上涨。

Generation Rent is also calling for the closure of a loophole that allows landlords to demand six or 12 months’ rent upfront – something policy manager Sophie Delamothe said was becoming more common. “Previously it was happening with international students who might not have a guarantor, but it’s increasingly being used as a security measure,” she said.

“租房一代”还呼吁堵塞允许房东要求预付6到12个月房租的漏洞——政策经理索菲·德拉莫思表示，这种情况正变得越来越普遍。她说：“以前这种情况只发生在没有担保人的留学生身上，但现在越来越多地将其作为一种普遍化的安全措施了。”

Previous attempts at reform have been thwarted. There are plans to ban no-fault evictions as part of the upcoming Renters’ Reform Bill, but in 2018, proposals to give tenants a three-year minimum contract – that would allow them to walk away but prevent them being kicked out at short notice – were abandoned by the government after a backlash from landlords.

以前的改革尝试都失败了。作为即将出台的《租房者改革法案》的一部分，有禁止无过错驱逐的计划，但在2018年，有人提议给租户一个三年的最低合同（这将允许他们离开，但防止他们在短时间内被赶出去），但在房主的强烈反对下被政府废除了。

The National Residential Landlords Association, which has 90,000 members, said it opposes reforms such as rent controls, which it claims would “deter investment” in the sector.

拥有9万名会员的全国住宅业主协会表示，反对租金控制等改革，称这会“阻碍”该行业的投资。

Meera Chindooroy, head of campaigns at the NRLA, said rent rises were fuelled by rising costs for landlords – including inflation, energy prices and costs for materials needed for repairs, as well as supply and demand pressures. Many landlords “won’t look to raise rents” at all because it is “in their interests to keep tenants in the property if they’ve got a good relationship with them”.

NRLA活动负责人米拉·奇多洛伊表示，房租上涨的原因是房东的成本不断上升，包括通货膨胀、能源价格、维修所需材料的成本，以及供求压力。许多房东“原本根本不会考虑提高租金”，因为“如果他们与租户关系良好，让租户留在房子里符合他们的利益”。

That is not a luxury that has been afforded to Phillip Caudell, 30, an app developer from Bermondsey, south-east London.

对于来自伦敦东南部柏蒙德西的30岁应用程序开发者菲利普·考德尔来说，这已经不再是曾经提供给他的一种奢侈了。

He found out last week that his rent is being put up by £650 a month – a 25% rise he and his partner, a teacher, cannot absorb. “We’re still in shock,” said Caudell, who has no choice but to leave the two-bedroom flat where he has lived for two years.

上周，他发现自己的房租每月要涨650英镑——25%的涨幅让他和他的教师伴侣无法承受。“我们仍然很震惊，”考德尔说，他别无选择，只能离开他已经住了两年的两居室公寓。

He called for reforms to level the playing field for tenants. “At the moment it feels like landlords can say whatever price they want, and we have to pay it,” he said. “I can’t blame our landlord; at the end of the day, he’s just doing what landlords do. But it’s at the expense of people like us.”

他呼吁进行改革，为租户提供公平的竞争环境。“目前的感觉是，房东可以随便要价，而我们必须支付，”他说。“我不能怪我们的房东。说到底，他只是在做房东该做的事。但这却是以我们这样的人为代价的。”