A victory on tenant security, but the campaign continues
After reports in the Sunday papers, late yesterday afternoon the Ministry of Housing published its long-awaited consultation paper on “Overcoming Barriers to Longer Tenancies in the Private Rented Sector”.
It allows us a moment to celebrate the first success of the End Unfair Evictions campaign: an acceptance by the government that private tenancy law is failing England’s tenants – just as our petition passes 40,000 signatures.
Leaving the detail of the policy to one side for now, it is significantly the first time the government has considered a change to tenancy law. Up to now ministers have been talking of merely “encouraging” landlords to offer better terms – while most landlords might do this, a lot of tenants would get no benefit. We have been arguing that we need full reform and, while incentives are still an option, mandatory reform is now on the table.