Londoner Forced to Leave Due to Soaring Rent
"I'm a born-and-bred Londoner but I'm leaving because I can't afford it. I'm being driven out of my own home."
Lauren Elcock, 31, currently pays £850 a month for a room in a shared rental in north-east London but is relocating to Manchester for a new job approximately 200 miles away.
"It's at the cheaper end of London and even that is kind of ridiculous for a room," she explains.
Over the past five years, Lauren's rent has risen by £250 monthly. After being made redundant in May 2025, she has managed to juggle four jobs, including dog walking and working at a local gym, just to make ends meet.
Finding this situation unsustainable, she has secured a flat in Manchester for £500 a month and is preparing to move.
National Housing Demonstration Calls for More Rent Controls
Lauren's experience reflects a wider struggle among renters. On Saturday, tenant groups, housing campaigners, and trade unions united in a national housing demonstration demanding stronger measures to improve rent affordability.
They argue the Renters' Rights Act, effective from 1 May, does not go far enough and are urging the government to implement further policies to reduce rent burdens.
The new legislation requires landlords to provide two months' notice before raising rent and limits rent increases to once per year at the market rate. Tenants can challenge excessive rent hikes at a first-tier tribunal, a civil court.
The Act also ends "bidding wars," preventing landlords from asking new tenants to pay more than the advertised rent.
Joe Beswick of the London Renters' Union acknowledges the Act will make a "tremendously big difference" by improving security but emphasizes it does not address affordability.
"What we need is clarity from the government for renters, including rules that prevent landlords that do massive hikes."
"It only addresses the issue of security, which is absolutely essential, but doesn't tackle the other half of the crisis, which is affordability."
He advocates for rent controls and caps.
These changes come amid a 3.5% increase in average UK monthly private rents to £1,367 in the 12 months leading to September 2025, according to provisional Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.
Analysis by flatshare website Spareroom reveals only five London postcodes now have average room rents below £800, a sharp decline from 81 postcodes in 2020.
A survey of 4,500 tenants in England, shared exclusively with the BBC, found that since the Renters' Rights Act received Royal Assent nearly six months ago, 30% of tenants remaining in the same rental property have experienced rent increases.
Additionally, 11% of tenants have faced eviction or received eviction notices.
Matt Hutchinson, Director at Spareroom, comments:
"It isn't fair tenants have been at the receiving end of all the upheaval since the 1 May hard deadline was announced."
"On the upside, what we may find is landlords who treat their rentals as a passive income may decide enough is enough, and that's not necessarily a bad thing."
Darren Baxter, principal policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, notes that although rent increases have slowed, rents have remained "persistently high compared to renters' incomes for the past two decades, particularly in London."
"This means even relatively small increases are enough to make rents unaffordable."
"Rent rises are also often uneven, making it difficult for renters to manage any increases. If renters move, the rent on a new property tends to be higher."
He adds that while the Renters' Rights Act offers some protection from financially punishing aspects of renting, landlords can still raise rents, leaving renters without affordable housing security.
'Rent Rises Pushed Me Onto Benefits'
Maxine Hamilton, 33, a data analyst, reports that her landlord admitted to raising her rent by £200 a month specifically ahead of the law changes.
Her small one-bedroom flat in south-east London has seen rent increase by £500 over seven years, now costing £1,350 monthly.
With her partner's poor health leaving her as the sole earner, they have been forced onto universal credit, assessed as a household, as she cannot afford the rent alone.
Maxine states:
"I can't physically move out anywhere cheaper because I can't find anywhere.
It's so frustrating. I don't want to be on universal credit.
I want to be able to support my family, and myself. I'm paying taxes in my full-time job and those taxes are going towards paying universal credit which is going towards paying my landlord's mortgage, whilst I'm stuck here with little disposable income.
Every time I try and plan for the future, every time I think things are going to improve, it all just gets knocked down again."
Polling by research consultancy Public First indicates that one in three Londoners aged 18 to 30 are likely to leave the capital within two years, equating to approximately 600,000 people.
The anonymous online survey of 1,066 London adults conducted in August 2025 attributes this trend primarily to the cost of living, especially rent.
Ruth Duston from London Heritage Quarter, a collective of four central London Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) that commissioned the research, warns:
"That also then has a ripple effect on London's culture, leisure and hospitality sectors.
It is a big concern for our businesses."
'We've Barely Had Any Rights Before'
Lauren is moving out of London as the Renters' Rights Act takes effect, legislation she generally supports.
She says:
"We've barely had any rights before so it's good that it will be harder to be evicted; you're not locked into anything, so if your rent is skyrocketing you can choose to leave."
However, she calls for rent caps to be considered:
"You've got to wonder where the ceiling is."
Maxine also sees the changes as positive but believes the government should have implemented rent caps.
She remarks:
"If I'm feeling like this, and all the people working full time on universal credit are feeling like this, it feels ridiculous.
Landlords can set the market rate so it's saying as long as enough landlords agree, they can increase the rent as much as they can."
The Renters' Rights Act will become law during the local election campaign. A recent YouGov poll ranked cost of living and housing among the top 10 local issues for British voters ahead of polling day on 7 May.
Steve Reed, MP for Streatham and Croydon North and Secretary of State for Housing, stated:
"Across London, 2.7 million renters will benefit from Labour's Renters' Rights Bill, ending Section 21 no-fault evictions so families can't be forced out without reason, capping unfair rent hikes, and introducing a new ombudsman and stronger enforcement to drive up standards.
It will also ban bidding wars, stop blanket bans on families and those on benefits, and give renters more rights over their homes.
This is what change looks like: a Labour government working with Labour councils and a Labour mayor to bring down the cost of living and give Londoners the security of a home they can rely on."
Political Parties' Responses
The Conservative Party stated that the Renters' Rights Act "was legislation that the Conservatives put forward in the last Parliament." They added:
"Labour's version does not seek to strike an appropriate balance with landlords and, in the midst of a housebuilding collapse, will exacerbate housing costs for Londoners by driving landlords out of the market."
The Liberal Democrats emphasized that the rental market should provide "security, not stress... everyone has the right to a safe, warm and affordable home." A party spokesperson told BBC London:
"We've long called for an end to no-fault evictions - a promise the Conservatives made and repeatedly broke.
We're glad this has now been delivered, and we'll keep pushing to make renting fairer."
The Green Party expressed disappointment that rent controls are not included in the Renters' Rights Act, a policy they have campaigned for. A spokesperson said:
"Greens are hugely disappointed that this Labour government refuses to devolve powers for rent controls. The mayor of London hasn't done enough to push for this – Greens will keep up the pressure."
Reform UK criticized the Act, stating:
"Labour's Renters' Rights Act has been a disaster for renters in London. It's already driving landlords to sell up in droves, slashing rental supply and pushing up rental prices."
