A TENANTS’ campaign group has called for a loophole in an energy improvement scheme to be closed after an 83-year-old woman was told to leave her home following weeks of disruption.
The elderly tenant, who was renting a house in Fife, was given notice to leave after being “harassed” by her landlord into agreeing to the “improvements”.
Under the ECO4 scheme, homeowners can secure free energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households.
The 83-year-old’s rented home was eligible for the scheme as she is classed as a vulnerable tenant but there is no rule preventing landlords from giving tenants notice to leave once the work is done.
“As far as I know, past energy upgrading schemes like this had a built-in requirement that the tenant had to carry on living in the property for a couple of years after the upgrade was completed but ECO4 has no such requirement,” the tenant told the Sunday National.
She is fighting to stay on at the property and aims to take her case to the Scottish Government’s housing tribunal.
“I’m 83 and on a low income so with the rental market going berserk, my chance of finding somewhere similar that isn’t at least double my rent is zero,” said the tenant, who asked not to be named.
She said the flaw in the scheme should have been obvious from the start.
“It’s supposed to benefit the tenant by giving them a warmer home and lower bills but that doesn’t work if they’re evicted once the work’s done,” she said.
“The landlords’ free upgrade doesn’t even get mentioned in the promotional stuff about the scheme but my landlord wouldn’t have got it if I hadn’t qualified for it.”
The tenant said she had expected her landlord to be grateful she had agreed to the work even though she was reluctant to do so.
“I didn’t want anything to do with the scheme in the first place but when the landlord got wind of all the lovely freebies on offer, he harassed me into eventually having the work done but it was horrendous,” she said.
“He didn’t even help with clearing up the terrible mess afterwards and didn’t even have the guts to serve the notice to leave himself. He hired a letting agent to do that for him.”
Initially told the work would take four days, it ended up taking three weeks.
“I’d expected they would do one room at a time but the workmen were all over the house at once and I had to keep my clothes in black bin bags in the car because there was nowhere else to put them,” said the tenant.
“It was a monumental upheaval and involved tearing up the floorboards to install much bigger radiators, a new hot water tank and an air source heat pump.
“And by the way, the fabulous new heating system is expensive and useless when it’s really cold!”
Other much-needed repairs that are the landlord’s responsibility are not being carried out, according to the tenant who is calling for the ECO4 loophole to be closed.
Her call is backed by campaign group Living Rent.
Chair Aditi Jehangir said: “It is appalling that this tenant was made to put up with weeks of work only to be given notice to leave once the work was done.
“As a result, aged 83, she was forced to live in the property while work was being completed, which completely disrupted her life. The landlord could have found temporary accommodation for her or given her compensation for the struggle she was put through.
“Making her stay in the property while work was being done to her home only to then give her notice to leave suggests the landlord just wanted to extract as much money as he could from her.
“Across Scotland, landlords are evicting tenants claiming that they are going to sell the property or that they are going to move in only for the tenant to later find the property on the market with inflated rent. Any tenant who discovers this should take their landlord to a tribunal where they are entitled to up to six times the original rent in compensation.”
The tenant’s case was taken up by her MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville who wrote to the UK Minister for Energy Consumers, Dr Miatta Fahnbulleh MP.
In her reply, the minister said: “One of the reasons that there are no time period requirements associated with the PRS [private rented sector] uptake of the ECO, is that provision for residential tenancies as a housing matter is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
“Any tenancy protections related to the ECO would need to be implemented by the Scottish Parliament through amending the applicable housing legislation.”
The Scottish Government was approached for comment.
