Finding a flat to rent in England can be tough. The stress only compounds when things don’t go as planned. When I lived in London, I got caught out when my landlord insisted on “renegotiating” the tenancy terms after I had paid a holding deposit (a troublingly common practice in the market).

Here are twelve things tenants can do to protect their rights, which helped me succeed in my legal claim against my landlord.

Paul Munday is the founder of RentProfile. For more useful websites for renters, visit our resources page.

A few years ago my brother David was the victim of a rental scam. It was this experience that led us to research the scale of the problem and start to think about ways to raise awareness and maybe even prevent this kind of fraud from happening in the first place.

We realised there is a compromise when seeking a rental today: either go through a letting agent which may charge excessive fees, or use a listings site where there's a chance of being scammed. It wasn't difficult to find fake listings on websites. Renters told us they were daunted by paying out thousands to a landlord (who is a stranger) but did so as they had little choice.

Thomas Karcher runs Kagoo.co.uk

With sky-high rents squeezing tenant’s budgets, bills are yet another unwelcome expense. However, it is possible to significantly reduce your electricity bill by following our Top 10 electricity saving tips.

1. Check your electricity tariff

As a tenant you are free to switch electricity suppliers without requiring permission from the landlord. Compare tariffs, duel fuel discounts and payment options to ensure you get the best deal.

Please note some agents try and tie tenants into energy deals with a preferred provider. Generation Rent would like to hear if you have been affected by this.

This is a guest post from Joanna White of Property Principles. To write for our blog, please contact us.

Moving house is stressful enough - finding a suitable flat, packing up your things, trying to avoid paying double rent for too long. And then there's the question of whether you'll get your deposit back. 

According to the Tenancy Deposit Service, 56 per cent of deposit disputes are about cleaning.  Many of these end with tenants losing all or most of their deposit.  It’s in everyone’s interests to reduce the number of cleaning disputes. Here are my tips for avoiding disagreements when you hand over your keys:

Each year 1.5 million private renter households move home - that's about a third of the renter population. And each year, around 200,000 people move into private renting for the first time.

Whether you're moving out of your childhood home, or this is your fifth move in as many years, make sure you're aware of your rights. We have worked with the TDS Foundation to produce a guide to your rights as a tenant. The position of renters is slowly improving - today protections against revenge evictions come into force and landlords are required to fit smoke alarms - but it is still easy to get ripped off if you aren't prepared.

Printed copies of the guide are available from Generation Rent on request.

Once you've brushed up, test yourself with a quiz we've put together with the Mirror.

There's a lot of muttering right now from the landlord lobby that they'll be putting up rents because of changes to the tax regime and expected increases in interest rates. 

The threats would sound scarier if rents weren't already going up faster than inflation. The fact is many landlords will use any excuse to put up the rent when they get the chance. Many others value their tenants, and won't. 

If you face a rent hike, you don't need to accept it. We've put together a 3 minute video on what to do to avoid paying too much.

Last month Ofgem launched their ‘Be An Energy Shopper’ campaign to encourage tenants to switch energy suppliers when they can make savings and to overcome the hurdles that many may see perceive in the switching process.

In June, the Department for Communities and Local Government launched a new guide for private rented sector tenants titled How to rent: the checklist for renting in England. With this guide the government want to give the country’s 9 million tenants access to understandable information for renting property in England.