What a day for renters in England! The new Renters’ Rights Bill has been published. The Bill, introduced swiftly into the new Parliament, is an important step forward for our rights which should be celebrated. While we have been here before, with the Renters (Reform) Bill, which was watered down and ultimately dropped before the general election, we’re daring to hope that these new reforms will make it through parliament and become law at some point next year.
Now is a good time to recognise all of the hard work done by renters’ rights campaigners over the years, from everyone who has volunteered with, worked for, or even just signed a petition by Generation Rent – our work in England has been leading to moments like this where we might be able to end unfair evictions once and for all. Our movement, as part of the wider Renters’ Reform Coalition, will continue to work tirelessly until the Bill becomes law and begins to make a real difference for tenants everywhere.
The Bill is broadly positive, and has been beefed up since the previous offering, but we do still have some concerns, particularly around the soaring rents we continue to face.
Section 21 abolition
The cornerstone of this Bill – ending draconian Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions – has been our top priority since we were founded a decade ago. This Bill will immediately ban these evictions as soon as it becomes law. We have been suffering from arbitrary evictions that see us removed from our homes with just eight weeks’ notice (more on that later) through no fault of our own since 1988. But the end is in sight, and soon the threat of a no-reason eviction will no longer hang over our heads when we need to make complaints or plan our lives.
Grounds for eviction will still exist, including when a landlord wants to sell up or move themselves or a family member in. Rent arrears will also remain a reason you can be evicted, but increasing the amount owed before you can face eviction without appeal from two months to three is a positive move which will keep many struggling tenants in their homes. The removal of plans by the last government that would have made life harder for those already in rent arrears, as contested strongly by our late friend Simon Mullings at last year’s committee stage, is also a significant improvement.
We do still need to see relocation compensation for those of us who are unfortunate to have our lives turned upside down through no fault of our own, but broadly this Bill meets our needs for a strengthened security of tenure. It will remove the lottery that renters currently face, of not knowing if we have a bad landlord who will abuse Section 21, and will empower us to ask for the changes we need in our homes.
Notice and protected periods
Generation Rent has long campaigned for an extension to notice periods when we are evicted. Two months is not long enough to find a new home, and the government agree. We will now receive four months’ notice when we are evicted through no fault of our own. This extra time will protect people from homelessness and enable us to find a new home if we are unfortunate enough to be evicted.
Just as importantly, the period in which we can live in our homes without being evicted has been set as a full year at the start of a tenancy, giving us more stability as we settle into a new home.
Bidding wars
The government promised to ban bidding wars as a part of this Bill but recent reporting suggested that ‘voluntary’ bidding would be permitted under the changes, which all tenants know would have resulted in the practice continuing with a nod and a wink from landlords. Generation Rent is pleased that our warnings were heeded and that the Bill promises a full ban on bidding wars, meaning that the final rent agreed cannot be more than the advertised price.
As always, those who flout the ban will have to be dealt with severely, and local councils need more funding to clamp down were this to happen. While banning bidding wars is not going to be the silver bullet that will deal with the cost of renting crisis for tenants, it is a welcome change that protects us from some of the worst examples of exploitative greed.
Affordability
Beyond banning bidding wars, the government will outlaw pre-scheduled rent increases being written into contracts and limited rent increases to once a year. While positive, it is clear that this is not enough to address how unaffordable renting has become.
Under these proposals, we are still vulnerable to rent-hike evictions, meaning that landlords can increase the rent with the purpose of forcing us out. To properly counter this, the government should limit the amount that rent can be increased while we’re within a tenancy to the lowest of wage growth and inflation.
In the absence of this common-sense approach, Ministers have talked up reforms to the Tribunal. The First Tier Tribunal exists for tenants to challenge rent increases but has a shamefully poor take up due to its difficulty to use, and the fact that it can award higher rents than the landlord requests. This Bill rightly addresses the latter, limiting tribunal decisions to whatever the landlord asks for, but still adjudicates based on ‘market rents’, a metric that drives up prices for renters based on speculative price-setting. To be truly effective, the tribunal should use actual rents – ie. what is being paid by renters in the area, rather than the price that landlords have made up for their properties on the market – to determine the fairness of a rent increase. Ultimately, there is work to be done in this space as the Bill passes through parliament.
Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law
As the previous Bill promised, the Decent Homes Standard will be applied to the privately rented homes as it does to social homes. However, in a step forward from previous legislation, Awaab’s Law will also apply to our homes. This means landlords will have a specified time limit to respond to reports of serious hazards, following the tragic and avoidable death of 2-year old Awaab Ishak due to prolonged exposure to mould in his home. While we await the details of the implementation of Awaab’s Law, we welcome its introduction for private landlords, which has come at the end of a long campaign from Generation Rent and other renter groups to level the playing field with social housing.
Private Rented Sector Database and Redress Scheme
Generation Rent is celebrating another campaign victory in promises to finally introduce a landlord register, as part of a wider Private Rented Sector Database. Crucially, there is a requirement for landlords to be registered if they wish to evict you – closing a loophole that the previous Bill would have left wide open.
There will also be a redress scheme which landlords and managing agents must subscribe to. This will be an approved scheme which must provide for the “independent investigation and determination of complaints by prospective, current, and former tenants of residential landlords, or their representatives”, and will have the power to impose a financial penalty of up to £40,000.
Other significant introductions
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- Abolishing blanket bans on tenants with children or those in receipt of benefits to ensure fair access to housing for all.
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- Extension of rent repayment order to cover new offences, with the maximum amount due now two years’ rent.
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- A consultation on mandating a higher Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard for rented homes.
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- The right to request a pet
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- Students only exempt from tenancy protections if they live in HMOs.
Generation Rent welcomes the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Bill, and looks forward to constructively engaging with the government to secure the best deal for renters. We promise all our fellow renters that we will continue fighting for you throughout this process and beyond.
