Generation Rent supporter Jaime describes what it is like to face a sudden rent increase whilst renting as a family. 

Today we learned that the population of private renters grew by more than 1 million households between 2011 and 2021. 

One in five of us in England and Wales now rents from a private landlord - a huge increase in ten years, while the proportion of the population that owns their home has fallen. 

All that is stuff we had a pretty good idea about already, but for the first time we know where all those private renters are!

Since 2019, it has been illegal for letting agents and landlords to charge tenants fees for starting a tenancy - and for renewing one, and ending one. 

Tenants can challenge illegal fees at a Tribunal, and we recently discovered one of the biggest names in the property world, Foxtons, was ordered to refund tenants whom they charged illegal fees.