We have responded to the Welsh Government’s newly announced White Paper on Adequate Housing and Fair Rents, expressing concern over the timeline for change and the need for stronger protections against evictions and rent rises.
The White Paper outlines the government’s vision for adequate and affordable homes for all, with proposals to strengthen renters’ rights and ensure housing standards are met. However, as these proposals are intended for the next Senedd term, meaningful reforms may not come into effect until after May 2026, leaving renters at the mercy of the current crisis. Renters in Wales cannot afford to wait for years for action.
Jayne Bryant, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, stated, “Ensuring everyone in Wales has a decent, affordable and safe place to call home is a key ambition of this Government. The principle that everyone has a right to an adequate home is one we wholeheartedly support.”
A White Paper is a government report giving proposals on an issue, with the intention that these proposals could be developed into law or policy at a later date.
We support Welsh Government’s proposals to:
- Improve rent data, including a requirement on landlords/and or agents to provide rent data to Rent Smart Wales.
- Develop a spatial rent map to show local area rent data.
- Define how to demonstrate that a home is habitable.
However, the plans do not go far enough to address the crisis in renting that is driving tenants across Wales in debt, poverty and homelessness. We recommended a number of changes in our submission, including that the government should act urgently to limit rent rises, end unfair evictions and compensate tenants forced to move.
Limit rent rises
Rent rises should be limited each year to the lower of wage-growth or consumer price index inflation. This approach reflects the reality of renter spending power and would offer renters desperately needed breathing space. We agree that actual rents should be recorded by Rent Smart Wales or some other mechanism as soon as possible, but lack of data cannot be a reason to allow renters to continue to be driven into poverty, debt and homelessness because of the cost of renting. Without regulating rents, it appears the government has no other meaningful way to deliver fair rents in the coming years.
Welsh Government is defining ‘fair rent’ to mean ‘equitable’, as in fair to both tenant and landlord. With tenants throughout Wales paying 37% more since 2021 (according to Zoopla) in return for no guarantee of an improved home or an improved service from their landlord, the current situation of unregulated rents is clearly neither equitable nor sustainable.
End unfair evictions
Section 173 no-fault evictions mean that landlords in Wales are able to evict tenants without giving any reason whatsoever. This must be ended, otherwise renters will continue to be made vulnerable to arbitrary or revenge evictions. The existence of Section 173 would allow landlords to dodge any new protections against unfair rent hikes and fuels unaffordability in the rental market. Renters also hesitate to report unsafe or poor living conditions out of fear that landlords will retaliate by issuing a no-fault eviction notice. This can trap renters in unsafe homes and allow landlords to get away with dragging their feet on repairs or refusing to carry out their duties.
While Section 173 evictions do offer the longest notice period available in the UK, with renters given six months to leave the home, it remains unfair and harmful for landlords to be able to force renters out without needing a specified and legitimate reason.
Compensate tenants forced to move
Our research has shown that an unwanted move costs a typical two-adult tenant household £2216. We therefore believe that tenants should be given further protections from no-fault evictions, as they face the significant financial, logistical and emotional toil of an eviction through no fault of their own. We propose that this takes the form of relocation relief – non-payment of rent for the final two months of the notice period, proportionate with the average cost of an unwanted move.
To avoid paying rent on two tenancies, tenants currently continue to have very tight windows to secure a new home. Missing this window because of availability or competition can result in homelessness, which relocation relief would help to avoid. 6,447 households were living in temporary accommodation in Wales in March 2024, at great expense to local authority budgets.
What now?
Welsh Government will now consider our views and those of others as part of the policy-making process. They will then publish a summary of responses alongside details of what the government plans to do next. This can take a few weeks or many months, so do follow us on social media to stay in the loop.
