Fixing and Preventing Mouldy Homes

The Scottish Government is considering legislation that will force social landlords to fix mouldy homes.

While this will initially only cover tenants in Council, Housing Authority and other social rented homes, there appear to be plans to extend the legislation to the private rented sector too.

Landlords absolutely must be held accountable for the quality of the homes they rent out and that means, at an absolute minimum, making sure that they are safe, comfortable and affordable to live in.

However, the fact that so many of Scotland’s homes are of such poor quality that they present a danger to health is extremely concerning.

Common Weal has advocated for a system of rent controls to be deployed in Scotland that would cap and discount rents based on the quality of the home - this is similar to a system already in place in countries like the Netherlands. In effect, landlords would be unable to increase the profits they extract from their tenants by skimping on repairs and maintenance.

But some of the problems with Scotland’s homes are not as a result of poor repair but of poor design and build quality in the first place - there have been too many stories of brand new homes also suffering from mould.

Common Weal has also campaigned - successfully - for newbuild homes to be constructed to the highest level of energy efficiency and continue to campaign for those regulations to include rigorous building quality standards too.

We also have a plan to empower Local Authorities to build social rented homes at a scale, a quality and a price that would undercut the current private rented sector and force those landlords to up their game to compete.