The Renters’ Rights Bill has passed its second reading in the House of Lords and will progress to the committee stage.
Opening the debate yesterday, Baroness Taylor said: “The private rental system needs to change. It currently provides the least affordable, poorest quality and most insecure housing of all tenures. The insecurity it engenders creates uncertainty in the lives of tenants and allows good landlords to be undercut by the minority of rogues and chancers. In short, the 11 million private renters and the 2.3 million landlords across England are being failed.
“The Renters’ Rights Bill brings forward the most significant changes to the sector for nearly 40 years. The bill will strengthen the security of tenure for tenants; ensure that they are paying a fair rent; guarantee a minimum standard that they can expect from a property; provide new robust avenues to redress; and more.”
She also said new, expanded possession grounds would be introduced and the government would make sure these were “watertight” to prevent them being abused by landlords.
Taylor said councils would be given “new investigatory powers” to identify and fine unscrupulous landlords, which could include entering business and residential premises.
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Bill could reduce number of rental homes
Lord Trustcott said his concern was that having only periodic tenancies as well as banning longer terms and upfront payments would have an “unintended impact” of reducing the availability of homes, increasing rents and “affect[ing] the financial viability of the private rental sector (PRS) as a whole”.
He said the inability to provide upfront payments would impact the self-employed, foreign students, those with a poor credit history and vulnerable people.
Trustcott added that because the bill enabled tenants to move out at two months’ notice, landlords would increase rents to cover the costs of cleaning and references for new tenants, as well as there being a higher risk of voids or vacancies.
This proposal is said to protect renters who want to leave poor-quality homes and those in unsafe situations, such as domestic abuse.
Lord Howard suggested that if the bill passed, there would be an “even greater shortage of rental homes” in five years than there is now.
“Landlords are already creaking under the weight of tax and bureaucracy, and the rental market is shrinking. Rented accommodation will always be needed, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out, but the policies the government are proposing will result in a further reduction of the amount of rented property available.
“Decreasing supply coupled with the increasing demand will serve only to push up costs for new tenants,” he added.
Reacting to the bill’s passing, Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark, said: “As anticipated, members of the House of Lords delved into the detail of the Renters’ Rights Bill and discussed the intended and unintended consequences it will bring. Importantly, many peers outlined key changes to property standards and the challenges on local authority enforcement drawing attention to the vital role letting agents will play in ensuring education and compliance to tenants and landlords.
“Disappointingly, some peers have fallen into the trap of not understanding the costs and taxes impacting landlords and seeing rent control as an additional measure to tackle affordability issues in the private rented sector. Similar policies have failed in Scotland and must be, at all costs, avoided by the UK government.
“Sensible amendments were talked about to support student renters, much needed clarity on court reform and the implementation timeline, tackling short-term lets and local authority funding as well as practical application of the grounds and amending deposit rules to allow more tenants to rent with pets. These are the areas that the UK government must focus their attention [on] during the remaining stages of the bill.”
