Tag: Private rented sector

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Enforcement will define the Renters’ Rights Act’s success

Since being elected, one of my priorities has been to tackle the insecurity faced by private renters across the country and within the Cities of London and Westminster. In my constituency, thousands rely on the private rented sector, and for too many, the reality has meant unstable tenancies, unpredictable rent increases, and a system that too often leaves tenants with little power over the place they call home.  

Long before I was elected, I met with renters who shared their experiences, families forced to move at short notice, tenants hesitant to challenge unfair treatment, and individuals living with the constant fear that a rent increase could push them out of their community. Those conversations made one thing clear: insecurity in the rental market does not just affect individuals, it shapes the stability and cohesion of entire neighbourhoods.

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Since entering Parliament, I have continued to work closely with residents, using their experiences to shape my work and pressing for reforms that would deliver genuine security. Shortly after being elected, I was happy to join the Committee that scrutinised the Bill going through Parliament. By banning Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions and introducing clearer protections around rent increases and tenant rights, it begins to rebalance a system that has for too long favoured landlords over renters. 

But passing legislation is only the first step. For reforms to have impact, they must be backed by systems that are accessible, fair, and effective in practice. One of the most important of these is the process through which renters can challenge rent increases.

For many tenants, the idea of formally challenging a rent increase has felt out of reach. It can appear complex, uncertain, and, above all, risky. When your home is on the line, few feel able to question a landlord’s decision, even when it seems unreasonable. That imbalance has allowed rent increases to become, in some cases, a tool of pressure. 

The changes introduced alongside the Act recognise this reality. By reducing the risks associated with challenging rent increases, they aim to give renters the confidence to assert their rights without fear of unintended consequences. This is essential if we are serious about ending the culture of insecurity that has defined renting for too long.

However, if barriers, whether financial, procedural, or practical, discourage renters from using these protections, then the system will fall short of its potential. Even modest upfront costs or the fear of retrospective charges can be enough to deter people from coming forward, particularly at a time when household budgets are already under strain.

At its heart, this is about more than dispute resolution. It is about ensuring that rent increases are fair, transparent. If renters are to feel truly secure, they must have confidence not only in the law, but in the mechanisms that enforce it. Of course, these reforms to the process of the tribunal must work side by side with investment in the tribunal process so that there are not delays.

This is more than a technical reform. It is a statement about the kind of housing system we believe in. One where renters are able to act on their rights. Where stability is the norm, not the exception. And where the ability to remain in your home does not depend on your willingness to accept whatever terms are put before you.

The Renters’ Rights Act is a landmark achievement, and one that will make a real difference to people’s lives. Its success will ultimately be measured by how it works in practice, by whether renters feel empowered to use the rights it provides, and whether those rights deliver the security they have long been denied.

For renters across the Cities of London and Westminster, and across the country, this is a moment of real progress.

For more information on what the Renters’ Rights Act means for you, please check out Shelter’s website which offers an explainer on this topic.

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Blog Post Renters' Rights Act

Renters’ Rights Act lays the foundations of housing justice for private renters

On 26th October 2022, I received a Section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction notice. That meant my partner and I had two months to find a new flat. Three unsuccessful offers, six weeks, a lot of stress and a 40% increase in our monthly costs later, we managed to move into a new place in the same neighbourhood in time for Christmas. It was a grim, expensive experience.

Frankly though, my partner and I could take it. We had some savings, jobs flexible enough to allow us to go to flat viewings at little notice, and enough income to swallow the bitter pill of rapidly escalating rents.

Most private renters are less able to absorb this shock than we were. Almost half have no savings. The private rented sector (PRS) is now home to 1 in 4 of households with children in England, up from 1 in 10 in 2003/04. By 2040, over 2 million pensioners are projected to be renting from a private landlord. Many private renters can’t drop everything to hunt for a new flat because of work, caring responsibilities and health problems. Those with children in school or nursery have less choice over where they can move without disrupting their families. Many people simply want to stay in the community they know and where they feel at home. The need to stabilise life in the PRS is clear and urgent.

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The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is the biggest win for renters in a generation. It is a reset after decades in which England built one of the least regulated private rented sectors in Western Europe. As of 1st May 2026, Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions are gone. That will curtail opportunities for rogue landlords to use ‘revenge evictions’, where renters who ask for repairs or complain about poor conditions are simply turfed out. Landlords will need to give a reason before evicting people – for example because they are selling the property or moving into it themselves. In these cases, renters will now get four months rather than two to find a new place to live. Given intense pressures in many local housing markets and a social housing system stretched to breaking point, having to move will continue to be a struggle. But those extra two months will be a lifeline for many. They will give renters more time, more choice, and more power.

Other changes will also help rebalance the scales in renters’ favour. Landlords will only be able to put up rent once a year, cannot demand large upfront payments, and cannot invite or accept bids above the asking rent, to name only a few. The Act is a reset after decades of unusually aggressive deregulation. The Housing Act 1988 made short-term tenancies and ‘no fault’ evictions the norm, helping create one of Western Europe’s least secure private rental markets.

But the single biggest problem for private renters remains: it is really, really expensive. Under new rules coming into force on Friday, renters will have a legal route to challenge rent hikes above market rates. Since the biggest rent increases happen when renters move between tenancies, fewer moves should also provide some protection. But none of this helps with the reality that market rates themselves are already unaffordable for many. Britain still needs far more homes, including social housing. But even a major housebuilding push would take years to ease rental pressures. Millions of renters need relief now – not in a decade or more’s time.

It’s no surprise that think tanks, charities, campaigners and tenants’ unions are now calling for different forms of rent regulation to cool or reduce rents over shorter timescales. These range from caps on how rents can rise within tenancies, to full rent freezes between tenancies, to measures to reduce rents from current highs by linking them to reference rents based on local incomes and housing conditions. Others continue the long-running campaign to increase Local Housing Allowance (housing benefit for the PRS) so that it covers the costs of renting. We need a plan to make life affordable for renters, and I hope that Red Brick can be a space for the left to share different ideas and evidence.

But we shouldn’t let this debate distract from what a huge achievement the Renters’ Rights Act is. It lays the foundations of housing justice for private renters. It will allow us to plan our lives, address problems in our homes without fear of eviction, and is likely to mean fewer moves and fewer rent hikes. That is a good place from which to plan our next steps.

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Blog Post Renters' Rights Act

Finally, a new era for private renters is here

For some people, 1st May 2026 will not represent anything out of the ordinary beyond maybe being happy at the early signs of summer and looking forward to the coming bank holidays. But for private renters in England (one in five of the population), it will represent a new era, with the Government’s Renters’ Rights Act promising the biggest shake up to renters’ rights since the 1988 Housing Act.

The new law is a long time in the making. Generation Rent was formed back in 2014 with the aim of campaigning for change to our broken renting system. This led to Theresa May’s government first promising to scrap Section 21 evictions in 2019. Since then we’ve had a pandemic and the Conservative Government’s Renters’ Reform Bill, which fell when Rishi Sunak called a snap election two years ago.

But finally we are here. While not the answer to all our problems, the Renter’s Rights Act is certainly a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between renters and landlords which has caused so much hardship and misery in recent years.

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The headline change is the scrapping of Section 21 evictions, which allow a landlord to evict a tenant for no reason with just two months’ notice. According to analysis by Shelter, someone approaches a local council as homeless every 21 minutes due to Section 21. Meanwhile, the looming threat of a retaliatory eviction means we renters are terrified of raising disrepair issues or challenging unfair rent increases.

From 1st May, outside of rent arrears and anti-social behaviour, landlords will only be able to evict tenants to sell the home, or move themselves or a family member in. They will need to give the renter four months’ notice in these cases and, to prevent abuse, they will be banned from re-letting the home for 12 months afterwards, meaning renters in England will enjoy better protections against eviction than in Scotland or Wales.

Alongside this, there are a host of other changes that will benefit renters from 1st May. The end of fixed-term tenancies will give us more flexibility, allowing us to vote with our feet if a home is poor quality or a landlord doesn’t fulfil their obligations. Meanwhile the limit on rent in advance to one month will help reduce the huge upfront cost of renting and the end of bidding wars will stop the practice of pitting renters against each other to drive up prices. We will also have the right to request a pet and have more incentives to challenge rent increases.

However, fairer winds for renters are not necessarily guaranteed. For the new law to reach into people’s homes and improve their lives, it must be properly enforced by local councils, while renters need to educate themselves about their new rights.

A recent investigation by The Guardian found that two-thirds of councils in England have not prosecuted a single landlord in the past three years, despite receiving 300,000 complaints from tenants during that time. Meanwhile, half of local authorities responsible for housing didn’t fine a landlord between 2022 and 2024, with fewer than 2% of renter complaints leading to any formal enforcement action.

This has to change. We were pleased that the Government recently announced additional funding for council enforcement of the Renters’ Rights Act, and will be working hard to make sure councils are using their new powers to make sure landlords abide by the new law.

But this legislation is finally a recognition that renting from a private landlord has changed dramatically since 1988. No longer do people just rent for a few years in their early 20s. The increase in house prices and loss of social housing will mean more and more of us could be trapped renting for decades or even a lifetime. Homes are the foundations of our lives and private renters need those strong foundations as badly as anyone else.

When Generation Rent first called for the end of Section 21 over a decade ago, we were laughed out of rooms for being unrealistic. The change we have seen since then is proof that renters have been able to have a real say in the decisions that affect our lives, and that our voices have the power to reshape our world. Now, for the first time in a generation, millions of renters can look to the future with greater security, confidence, and hope.

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Blog Post Renters' Rights Act

No family should lose their home on a landlord’s whim

“There’s no light in the kitchen. The family are using a desk lamp in there, and there’s no cooker that works. There’s water running down the walls. We sent blankets home for the kids. But they don’t want to complain – they will be thrown out, and that means temporary accommodation – and you know it will be one of those hotels on the Hagley Road in Birmingham … and how will they get the kids to school?”

I was sat with the safeguarding lead for one of my primary schools, talking about one of their families and their private rented flat. Just another day as teacher in one of the lowest income areas of the country.

This story is a composite – but my inbox and my surgeries are full of them. I have talked to so many families, out of their minds with worry about keeping their kids in school, clutching an unwanted Section 21 or an unreasonable rent rise letter.

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After two decades of campaigning for renters, I became the Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury in the Black Country in 2024. We are proud and we are resilient, but 50 years of deindustrialisation and 14 long years of Tory austerity mean wages are low and poverty is high. Social renting is about a third – but private renting is rising fast, up to nearly a quarter of all households.

Much of the private rented sector in my ends is former council homes sold off over decades, leaving families who might once have expected lifelong security exposed to higher costs and instability. And my towns have few professional renters, no student blocks – but an increasing number of poorly managed Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) rented out by the room, aimed squarely at those with few other choices.

I think of the renters I have met these last two years – struggling with rogue landlords and high rents, nervous every day to raise the gas safety certificate four months overdue, the back door that doesn’t close, the fan heater which eats money cos the landlord won’t fix the central heating.

From 1st May, that changes. No more no fault evictions. No more Section 21 letters dropping like a bombshell on an unsuspecting family. Every renter will now have a rolling tenancy. If they keep up with the rent, they keep their home.

The law now recognises a simple truth that renters have always known: a home is not a favour that can be withdrawn at will. It is the foundation of family life, security and dignity.

For 40 years, Section 21 stacked the cards firmly in favour of the landlord’s right to profit from an asset, over the renter’s right to a stable home. And that power imbalance meant renters constantly worried about whether they’d be able to keep their kids in school and stay in their home. It kept people silent about disrepair, afraid to complain, reluctant to put down roots.

But no more. That is why the end of Section 21 matters so deeply. Renters will now know that no one can throw them out of their home just cos. Landlords will still be able to run their businesses; they will have clear grounds to regain their property when they genuinely need to. But risk – previously wholly borne by renters – will finally be shared.

And a safe, decent home matters too. Applying the Decent Homes Standard to private renting, bringing in Awaab’s Law, and backing councils to enforce the rules will finally tackle the damp, mould, faulty electrics and infestations that I have seen renter after renter forced to endure. A landlord who will not fix a home should not be rewarded.

In Tipton and Wednesbury, what many of my constituents actually need is a social home. But with 21,000 households on the waiting list locally, no matter how much we build (and we are building as much as we can), that won’t be where many families live. So getting the quality of private rents up, making them secure, giving families a home they know they can stay in – that matters. 

So to everyone who rents their home, I say this: this Labour Government has your back. No more no fault evictions. Security for families. Safer homes. Proper action on rogue landlords.

Over the last two years, I have voted for this change over and over – so many times, as the landlord lobby mounted one last stand for their right to control tenants’ lives through the House of Lords.

Take a moment to feel proud. All of us who kept on taking on the landlord lobby, who kept on standing up for renters – all of us who voted in a Labour government – we made this happen. 

Antonia Bance is the Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Before her election she was a senior trade union officer at the TUC. She was previously head of campaigns at Shelter and a board member of both the Nationwide Foundation and Generation Rent.

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Will the Renters’ Rights Bill end the temporary accommodation crisis?

The number of people trapped living in temporary accommodation is a national scandal.

Temporary accommodation has contributed to the deaths of 74 children in the last five years, according to figures from the National Child Mortality Database. Nearly 170,000 children, akin to the population of Oxford, are currently growing up in homes characterised by issues like overcrowding, damp and mould. Meanwhile, it’s temporary in name only. The average time a household with children spends living in temporary accommodation is now more than five years.

At the same time, providing it is crippling local authority finances, with related council spending increasing by 97% in the past five years.

The Labour Government have been in power for over a year now, but the crisis shows no signs of abating. The latest Statutory Homelessness Statistics showed the number of households in temporary accommodation rose by 12% in January to March, when compared to the same period the previous year.

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Politicians and renters alike will hope that the Renters’ Rights Bill could be one tool to bring down the number of people trapped in temporary accommodation. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner even said as much during the Second Reading debate for the Bill. The Bill passed through the House of Lords on 21st July and will likely receive Royal Assent in the Autumn.

There is some truth to this claim. According to analysis from Shelter, someone approaches a local authority as threatened with homelessness due to a ‘no fault’ Section 21 eviction every 21 minutes. The long-awaited outlawing of Section 21 will therefore help turn off the tap from private renting to temporary accommodation somewhat, as will the doubling of notice periods to four months when people are evicted.

However, the glaring gap in the Bill is the lack of any measures to reduce the soaring cost of renting. Landlords will still be able to use sudden rent hikes as an economic eviction to price their tenant out of the home.

Recent polling from the Renters’ Reform Coalition found more than a third of renters would be forced to move by a rent increase of £110 per month. But analysis by the campaign group suggests the average rent increase awarded to landlords at first-tier rent tribunals, the service through which renters challenge rent increases, is more than double this at over £240 per month.

The Government’s housebuilding targets are welcome, but, even with all the political will in the world, it will take years for people to see their impact. If we think of the temporary accommodation issue as an overflowing bath, the numbers of households are only going to significantly reduce if the Government finds a way to pull out the plug.

Right now, it is the soaring cost of private rents that is preventing people from moving on from temporary accommodation. According to Zoopla, the average monthly cost of private rents has risen by £221 in the last three years alone. Meanwhile, analysis from Crisis found just 2.5% of private rented properties are affordable for people claiming benefits.

Introducing a commonsense limit on how much landlords can raise the rent would help slam the brakes on the cost of renting, giving people on low incomes the breathing space needed to find a home.

Alongside this, the Government must unfreeze the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate, which governs how much housing benefit people can receive. The Work and Pensions Committee, a cross-party group of MPs scrutinising this area, recommended last year that “The Government should make a commitment to uprate annually Local Housing Allowance so that it retains its value at the 30th percentile of rents”.

This report and that recommendation was written and produced when Sir Stephen Timms was chairing the committee. Timms has since gone on to become Minister for Social Security. Giving evidence in Parliament last month, I suggested that the committee could ask the Minister what has changed.

Keeping LHA frozen only shifts the cost elsewhere. The cost of providing temporary accommodation was recently described by Labour MP and chair of the Housing Committee Florence Eshalomi as trapping councils in a “straight jacket”, preventing them from focusing on longer-term solutions. Meanwhile, landlords who provide temporary accommodation can be the worst of all, renting out awful properties and profiteering off the desperation of local councils.

Even with the Renters’ Rights Bill all but finished, there are other opportunities for the government to take action. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will start the parliamentary process in the Autumn. Within it, the government should include powers for Mayors to introduce a limit on rent rises in their areas. This is something Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for in the past and is similar to the approach the SNP is taking in Scotland. While the Treasury must unfreeze LHA in the upcoming Autumn Budget.

The Renters’ Rights Bill is a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between tenants and landlords. But if the government doesn’t use that momentum to reduce the cost of renting, the temporary accommodation crisis will sadly be a permanent fixture in our society.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Living with the Private Rented Sector

Whatever the housing sector looks like over the next 10 years, it is a certainty that the private rented sector will remain a major part of its makeup. Currently the second largest form of tenure after ownership, it is likely to remain so for much, if not all, of the next decade.

It has also become the default form of tenure for those for whom it is, in many ways, manifestly unsuitable – there are increasing numbers of retirement age private tenants, increasing numbers of families, and, in the absence of sufficient social housing, large numbers of low income and otherwise homeless people. This is not a problem that is going to go away quickly.

For all these reasons, a long term plan for the private rented sector is vital, even if most answers are ‘well you don’t want to start from here’.

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The Renters’ Rights Bill (in the House of Lords at the time of writing) is a very significant step forward.  I think we have forgotten how unthinkable some of the measures in the Bill would have been 10 years ago. It is the biggest change to the PRS in 37 years. My view is that it will have both immediate and longer term effects in shaping the PRS.

It hugely reduces the central problem with the PRS – the inbuilt, deliberate instability of tenure for tenants – and with that, gives tenants more confidence to pursue their rights in terms of housing conditions, unlawful charges, over-market rent increases etc. that had been deterred by the (often justified) fear that complaints would result in a section 21 notice and eviction.

It goes some way towards encouraging an actual market in PRS tenancies by enabling tenants to serve notice and leave an unsatisfactory, or overly expensive, property with two months notice, not locked into a year or longer fixed term that could not be terminated earlier.

The ‘landlord database’ – a de facto national landlord register for England – could be a powerful tool for addressing the criminal end of the sector, addressing undeclaration of income tax, but also, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging or requiring the professionalisation of the sector. (Most PRS landlords have only one or two properties. The extent of ignorance over the law and their obligations is breathtaking.)  What information is recorded on the database, and what information will be available to current or prospective tenants will be key.

The prospect of a new Decent Homes Standard applying across both social housing and the PRS could be a very effective move. We know that housing standards are generally lower in the PRS than the social housing sector, though there are far too many poor quality and hazardous homes in both. But what the standard will be and how enforced will be key.

There are some ‘could be’s here for two reasons. First, the devil will be in the detail of forthcoming regulations, and second because the effectiveness of the regulations will largely be reliant on enforcement by Local Housing Authorities.

If it all goes right, the direction of travel for the PRS should be better standards of accommodation, a focus on longer term tenancies and steady rental income. Not short term rent-inflating tenancies and a model based on ‘passive income’ paying the mortgage on properties where the landlord’s real gain is quickly realisable increased equity in the property.

If it all goes right, the sector will become increasingly professional, and the criminal actors be identified and suffer penalties that make the risk not worth the reward.

But that will need enforcement. The track record of LHAs on housing-related enforcement over the last decade is, to put it mildly, patchy. About half of LHAs do none at all. This has to change – enforcement staff must be recruited and trained, active policies on enforcement set out. This may require, at the least, seed funding for LHAs and for training programmes.

As the Renters’ Rights Bill proceeds, there have been inevitable and loud calls for rent controls in the PRS. To which the current answer is ‘well, you don’t want to start from here’. There is no tried model of rent control that doesn’t either raise rents overall, or result in the sector shrinking at speed.  At this point, we simply can’t afford for either to happen. The homelessness crisis is already severe, and LHAs are finding it increasingly impossible to find affordable PRS accommodation by which they can discharge their duty to the homeless. A shrinking PRS hits both ends of that equation. Maybe in 10 years and with a lot more social housing, things might be different, but right now it is a potential disaster.

That said, local housing allowance rates cannot remain frozen. The rate currently does not restrict rents, it reduces supply.

The Renters’ Rights Bill sets the stage for the future direction of the PRS, and it really needs to be considered in terms of its potential longer term impact on the culture and practices of the PRS, not just the immediate changes to tenure. But there is a lot of detail to get right in the subsequent regulations, and then a lot of LHA enforcement to do, to really bring that home over the next decade.

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Will the Renters’ Rights Bill transform the Private Rented Sector?

Image by Locksley McPherson Jnr licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Government must be congratulated on its resolve to enact the Renters’ Rights Bill at the earliest opportunity, in sharp contrast to the endless delays to the Conservatives’ Renters (Reform) Bill which finally bit the dust before the General Election.

It is important, though, to ensure that haste does not risk loopholes in this once in a generation chance to transform the experience of renting.

Abolishing Section 21 evictions to restore the security of tenure removed by the Thatcher Government is obviously a cornerstone to transformation.  But, after more than three decades of shorthold tenancies, it will take years before renters realise that their landlord cannot kick them out, and many will continue to leave when given notice before there is general awareness that renters can once again regard their tenancy as their home.

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The Bill does not introduce ‘rent controls’, though it does expand the opportunity for renters to challenge rent increases through the Property Tribunal.  Again, it will take years for renters to become aware of this, and many will remain too intimidated to act due to the power imbalance between them and their ‘Landlord’ (the title, like the relationship, hasn’t changed since feudal times). Renters may therefore have to wait for something approaching ‘affordable’ rents until the promised seismic increase in social rented homes reduces demand.

But most important of all, the Bill has the potential to ensure that renters’ homes are decent and safe. This is clearly the aim of the Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook. With reference to extending Awaab’s Law to the PRS during the Bill’s Committee stage, he stated, “We need to go further and ensure that no tenant is forced to live in a home that places their health and safety at risk”.   So, bearing in mind that the most vulnerable renters who are often in the very worst accommodation and will rarely feel able to fight for their right to a decent and safe home, we must devise a way to ensure that these protections are provided from Day 1 and maintained throughout the tenancy.

The best way to achieve this is through the ‘Private Rented Sector Database’ to be introduced through Regulations, following enactment of the Bill. 

We know that landlords will be required to register themselves and their properties on the Database as a prerequisite for letting. However, details of the Database have not yet been published, but we can assume that there will be a consultation in due course.

London Labour Housing Group’s view is that, after a phasing in period, landlords must provide independent evidence of compliance with physical and management standards (based on a new Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law) as a prerequisite for registration. This would include evidence of current requirements (gas and electrical safety, Deposit protection, Energy Performance, etc), plus an independent inspection report, based on a physical check of health and safety requirements. This model is based on the current requirement for owners of road vehicles to obtain an MOT certificate.

While there is broad acceptance of this model for the Database, some concerns have been expressed around the availability of suitably qualified inspectors to produce reports, and of their independence if inspectors are commissioned by landlords.

While assurances can be given to counter such concerns, an alternative approach could be considered.

This is prompted by the Government’s recent decision, in relation to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, to accredit property agents who meet objectively approved standards under the Regulation of Property Agents (ROPA).  ROPA accreditation will include letting agents managing properties on behalf of landlords, so it would be possible to exempt properties managed by ROPA-accredited agents from inspection in advance of registering for the Database. There is no data on the number of landlords who use high-standard letting agents to manage their homes, but the majority of those who do are those with the largest portfolios, so could account for around 40% percentage of rented homes.

Conveniently, and for the first time, the Bill provides for enforcement of standards under Selective Licensing, so it would be appropriate for local authorities to inspect and enforce these standards before a Licence is issued, charging fees that will cover the costs. Thus, Database registration for self-managing landlords would be restricted to those with an appropriate Licence. The increase in enforcement officers needed to ensure prompt inspections could be met by specific training for this task, based on the short course ‘Housing Conditions and Interventions’ currently provided by Middlesex University.

We must hope that this vital issue of ensuring standards is raised at the Bill’s Report Stage on 14 January, and that these important compliance issues are given further thought when the Bill passes to the House of Lords. If the Government can get this right, the private rented sector will truly be transformed.

Jacky Peacock, OBE, is the chair of Advice for Renters but is writing in a personal capacity.

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The Renters’ Rights Bill holds promise, but beware the tailless rats

Roupell St / SE1 by Images George Rex is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“The best laid schemes of mice and men, go often askew”; a warning a century and a half ago by the poet Robert Burns, on how even our most well-intended ideas may fail or falter by virtue of unintended consequences.

It is a parable that perhaps should have been heeded 100 years later in Hanoi, French Indochina (now Vietnam). As rat populations in the city ballooned beyond control amid the construction of a new sewer system, the French colonial rulers devised a solution: a bounty programme. For every severed rat tail – proof of an eliminated rodent – the government would pay a small fee to the exterminator.

Colonial figures soon realised the oversight in their rush to quell the crisis, however. Criminal enterprises had shifted their focus to farming, as the city’s shadowy suburbs became the breeding ground of rats and a new source of income. The result was a city now overrun with more rats than ever – most of them tailless.

This analogy is not without cause. The case for reform in the private rented sector has been mounting for some time, and has been spurred after hundreds of seats went from blue to red over the summer. The new Labour Government has signalled its commitment to renters, armed with a strengthened Renters’ Rights Bill and a haste to act.

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But as the Bill passes to Committee Stage, Parliament must recognise the risk of unintended consequences.

The end of Section 21 has always been the centrepiece of this legislation. But even this – as detailed in a recent report we supported from our colleagues at the Renters’ Reform Coalition – runs the risk of a rise in illegal evictions by criminal landlords.

The speed of this Bill is commendable, but caution must persist. Those watching the Second Reading will have noted the Secretary of State’s refusal to commit to publishing an impact assessment. Given the wide-ranging impacts of the Bill, failure to produce one is unwise.

We are, however, greatly encouraged by the announcement of the Bill’s public consultation. Our contribution concerns one key issue: Ground 6A.

Ground 6A is a proposed mandatory ground for eviction that would see renters removed from their homes with no defence to the claim, in instances where a landlord has breached legislation.

The aim of Ground 6A is to provide landlords with a route to vacant possession in order to avoid a range of sanctions that could be imposed by local authority enforcement teams where a breach to housing law has been made and also, theoretically, to offer renters protections from the health and safety hazards or criminal landlord behaviour.

The Ground supposes that, should a local authority decide that a landlord’s leasing of a property is unlawful, that landlord will be subject to further fines or sanctions until the tenants are evicted, which under the new regime they cannot be without Ground 6A’s existence (unless the landlord decides to sell).

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However, in reality, it is Ground 6A itself which will force landlords to evict renters or face fines. If evicting renters was the only way to comply with enforcement action and such an eviction was impossible, the landlord would clearly have a ‘reasonable excuse’, which in the Housing Act 2004 provides a complete defence to all of the potential offences they might be charged with.

Once the option to evict tenants because of enforcement action exists, such a reasonable defence completely disappears and eviction becomes the only option, even when tenants have nowhere else to go or when the property is in good condition.

Thus, in effect the worst criminal landlord behaviour is paid for by the renter necessarily losing any tenancy rights whatsoever – a moral and logical contradiction to the intentions of the Bill.

This, therefore, will create an enormous incentive for the worst-offending landlords to evict at no fault of the renter: the very problem that the abolition of Section 21 – one of the core principles of the Bill – is seeking to remediate.

But while this potential policy outcome seems nonsensical and punitive, it is far from the only consequence.

From evidence we’ve gathered, we know it is commonplace for landlords in the shadow private rental sector to routinely warn renters that the council will evict them should they complain. This is spurious and arguably a form of coercion, and without an amendment to this Ground, encourages this kind of exploitation and fatally undermines the whole purpose of the Bill: to protect renters from criminal landlords.

Just when local authorities need their powers of enforcement enhanced, this would likely diminish the effectiveness of their enforcement strategies as the worst conditions are pushed underground.

Prior to the Government’s Amendment 1 to the Bill, Ground 6A would shift the burden and costs of providing appropriate housing away from the non-compliant landlord and onto either the renter or the local authority, with costly temporary accommodation the likely destination. The amendment will order the landlord to pay compensation to the tenant where possession is obtained on Ground 6A.

An improvement certainly, but insufficient in real terms too. For one thing, the possession order is not conditional on the compensation payment being made, so many landlords will simply not pay the compensation in our view.

This would be an offence against natural justice: a landlord is in breach of the law but neither the renter, nor the local authority enforcement teams, are incentivised to pursue action because either, if not both, are faced with the social and financial consequences that should rightly fall to the landlord. Renters are thus faced with the question: do they seek action but face homelessness or continue to live under the criminal conditions of their landlord?  This is not the renters’ justice we expected.

Within the wider framework of the Bill – much of it enormously positive – it may feel finicky to focus all of our attention on the ‘small print’ of Ground 6A. But this, like Hanoi’s rat programme, could create far reaching and unintended consequences, with both renters and local authorities incentivised not to act. The criminal landlord, meanwhile – whose lies are now emboldened by law –  is free to act nefariously and with impunity.

Given the breadth of this Bill, and its public prominence, the new Government must heed the lessons of Hanoi. We do not wish for the Renters’ Rights Bill to leave the Government holding redundant rattails with only hindsight.

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Furniture Poverty and the role of furnished tenancies in social housing

Furniture poverty is too often hidden behind front doors. There are at least 6 million people in the UK living without essential furniture items and this could be a cooker, a fridge, or a child’s bed.

As the Cost of Living crisis continues to devastate lives, this figure is rising every day. If people cannot afford food, how can we expect them to be able to afford to replace a broken cooker?

Living in furniture poverty has a terrible impact on your life, affecting people’s physical and mental health, and their social and financial wellbeing. It can mean people turn to unaffordable credit to buy the items that they need, leaving them unable to pay rent or buy food; it can lead to social isolation as the stigma means family, friends or support workers are no longer invited into homes without a sofa to sit on; and it can lead to unhealthy diets and poor health without a cooker to prepare food or a fridge to store it in.

Of course, furniture poverty is about poverty, it is about people not having enough money to live on. It is about a broken welfare system, unaffordable housing, and insecure low-paid employment. But there are steps that can be taken now to lift people out of furniture poverty and provide them with a decent furnished home – and the social housing sector has a vital role to play.

At End Furniture Poverty, our research has shown that only 2% of social housing is let as furnished or part furnished, compared to 29% of private rental properties. We also know that 26% of social housing tenants are living in furniture poverty, living without one or more essential furniture item.

Those fleeing domestic violence, or moving from homelessness, often have no furniture at all, so are moving into an empty box. Even simply moving from a furnished property in the private rental sector to the social housing sector can leave tenants with no furniture, appliances, flooring or window coverings. Other sources of support for furniture and white goods are much harder to access as 37 local authorities in England have closed their local welfare provision schemes as they face enormous budgetary burdens, and charities are overwhelmed with the demand for help.

A furnished tenancy scheme can provide the answer

Furnished tenancies mean a landlord can provide all of the furniture items a tenant needs, including floor and window coverings, and then recoup the costs through the service charge element of Universal Credit. It provides a sustainable, long-term solution for tenants who are on benefits and likely to remain on benefits. This relieves the burden on local welfare schemes and the third sector, and frees up support for others in furniture poverty.

Some landlords offer furniture gifting schemes or small furniture reuse programmes and while these are vital tools, they cannot provide a comprehensive, sustainable solution given the scale of the issue. We need a blended approach, with a furnished tenancy scheme supplemented by reuse and gifting.

We believe that at least 10% of social housing stock should be let as furnished, a figure calculated using the current FT rates in social housing and number of social housing tenants in deep furniture poverty, lacking three or more essential items. Existing furnished tenancy schemes have also naturally balanced at around 10% of their housing stock so it is a robust figure.

We are already working with Liverpool City Council to encourage the local housing associations to commit to this target and we believe every social landlord in the UK should join them. Local authorities own 55% of social housing too, and with ambitious plans for more council housing on the horizon, now is the time for a sector-wide, firm commitment to furniture provision.

A guide for social landlords

To support social landlords, End Furniture Poverty has published a Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing, a step-by-step guide for landlords to understand how to develop their scheme, looking at everything from finance, staffing, asset management and much more. It also outlines the broader benefits to landlords with case studies from existing schemes including data around the impact of furniture provision with reduced rental arrears and tenancy churn, improved tenancy sustainability and reduced void costs.

Furniture Flex- one example of a delivery model

We have also been working with our colleagues in our wider group of charities, FRC Group, to develop an even better delivery model with Furniture Flex. We have brought together our knowledge from conversations with landlords across the country over several years, considering all of the barriers and challenges they face to get a scheme off the ground, and believe we have offered solutions to all.

FRC has been supplying furniture to landlords for many years, and as a registered charity and social enterprise, 100% of the surplus is reinvested back into the group to help us to achieve our charitable mission to end furniture poverty.

Furniture Flex offers landlords the option of purchasing the furniture with a more traditional furnished tenancy route when the landlord owns and controls the asset, or a rental model, where Furniture Flex retains ownership and the landlord pays the rental cost through the service charge. The rental model overcomes that barrier for tenants who may find employment and move off benefits as they can simply return the furniture and reduce or remove the service charge.

Furniture Flex also provides increased administration support for those smaller landlords who find the perceived admin burden a stumbling block. It also allows landlords to support tenants with one or two items, again relieving the burden on local authority crisis schemes.

Whichever route a landlord chooses to acquire their furniture, whether it is Furniture Flex or another provider, End Furniture Poverty is here to support them at every step of the way, from building business cases to assessing the impact of pilots.

The current system of moving our most vulnerable citizens into empty boxes has to change and furnished tenancies provide an ideal solution. Together we can End Furniture Poverty.

LHG will be ‘In Conversation’ with Claire Donovan at 6pm on the 22nd of February 2024, to further discuss furniture poverty and possible solutions. Find more details of that here.

Claire Donovan, a former journalist, is the Head of Policy, Research and Campaigns at End Furniture Poverty, which raises awareness of the issue of Furniture Poverty; carries out research to highlight
the consequences and reality of living in Furniture Poverty; and develops solutions. Claire is also a trustee of the Reuse Network.

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Student Housing & the Next Labour Government

As a recent graduate, I remember vividly the housing experiences of my time at university. Most students have horror stories about their flatmates coming home late and causing a ruckus, or messy nights out (and the following 9am lectures), but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find stories of horrendous housing conditions, absent or hostile landlords, and university housing teams that often aren’t able to provide detailed or timely advice. In fact, as is sometimes the case, these teams aren’t there to help at all, such as with one current student telling me that “(their) university provides almost no guidance on seeking accommodation beyond halls.”.

While it should be said that many universities try their best with what resources they have, the crisis is national. Even the most effective university housing departments will struggle to plug the gaps without serious governmental intervention.

The problem we face

Many students in the private rented sector suffer in sub-par housing, paying extortionate rents, with nowhere and nobody to turn to for help. Often, the only ports of call are overstretched and underfunded charities like Shelter and Citizens Advice. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many parents of students (especially those from lower-income backgrounds) are themselves renters and, in many cases, don’t know their own rights. This means these parents are often not in a position to lend help or advice when their children face housing issues.

During university, I had a drawn-out experience with a landlord who was personally quite hostile, and importantly did not abide by the law. A few of the breaches were fairly serious, such as not having a proper HMO licence for part of our stay, and not protecting our deposit in time in line with the regulations. HMO licences were introduced by the last Labour Government in the Housing Act (2004), alongside the requirement to properly protect tenancy security deposits with government-approved schemes. The licences were intended to improve housing conditions in places where properties were ‘Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)’, as these are often where the most vulnerable reside, and deposit protection was introduced to afford tenants an impartial adjudicator where disputes arise over damage – as they so often do.

HMOs in England and Wales generally cover households of three or more unrelated groups, with mandatory licensing at five. Their purpose was to set down strict requirements regarding things like fire safety. Local authorities can set their own ‘Additional’ or ‘Selective’ schemes, with lower barriers before licensing becomes mandatory (for example, fewer tenants needed before a licence is required).

What recourse do students have?

If students face similar situations, what recourse is available? Some, but only if they know they it’s there. For example, with HMO regulations there is legislative provision for claims in some cases, but most students wouldn’t even know that HMO licences exist, much less how to deal with a situation where a landlord doesn’t have one. Other situations, such as when a landlord doesn’t protect a deposit in line with the law, can cost in excess of £300 to bring (unless you qualify for help with fees). They also have specific and somewhat arcane procedures that must be followed, lest a student open themselves up to cost and procedural arguments by a landlord who can likely afford a solicitor.

Claims like these can require in-person court hearings, which can be intimidating for anyone, let alone someone such as a student. Many also feel it to be pointless – as another student tells me: “students will live as they are, as they’re moving out in a year anyway” – something that law-breaking landlords no doubt rely on. Local authorities do have the power to prosecute landlords who break some of the more serious rules, but it is hardly surprising that in an era of mass funding cuts, they have run out of the time and money to do so.

The regulation is not enough.

The above covers claims with legislative recourse, but many breaches do not have such clear-cut paths to remediation or, even more importantly, preventing further transgressions. For example, many private tenants are used to landlords and agents demanding access to their property, sometimes without proper notice, and sometimes for spurious reasons. Many are unaware of quiet enjoyment, which is an implied term into every Assured Shorthold Tenancy, and guarantees ‘quiet enjoyment’ of the property without undue interference from the landlord or those acting on their behalf. Of those who are aware and choose to enforce it, they tend to have very little success. Damages in such cases are minimal if existent at all. At best, they might (in more serious cases) be able to obtain an injunction. This again, though, requires the tenant to not only be aware of their rights, but also the method (and perils) of enforcing them.

Where do we go from here?

So, how is this dire situation to be rectified? We can start by building on the successes of the last Labour Government.

The introduction of penalties up to 3x the deposit for non-compliance with the regulations were very effective. Allowing Rent Repayment Orders for non-compliance with HMO licensing regulations were also a good step forward. But we must go further. If a student does find themselves in need of advice, universities should be their first port of call. As such, government should legislate to ensure university student unions have an in-house or contracted full-time worker to deal exclusively with housing cases and advice. These individuals would ideally be lawyers, or at least have some form of legal training. Universities should also be encouraged to set up support groups and networks for students to share experiences on housing and how to deal with situations.

Aside from the private rented sector, many students in university-run halls are considered in law to be excluded occupiers (they are specifically excluded from protections afforded to tenants under the 1988 Housing Act and a subsequent Statutory Instrument), and therefore do not have the same rights and recourse that Assured Shorthold Tenants do. Labour should legislate to remove this loophole, ensuring that the protections apply equally to all tenants, regardless of who owns their housing.

In addition, Labour should build on the good work of the introduction of mandatory HMO licencing schemes, by lowering the threshold for mandatory licensing to that which many local authorities have rightly chosen: 3 or more unrelated people/households living in one property. This would provide greater protection to students especially, but also some of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, who often have little choice but to share accommodation.

Section 21 (no-fault) evictions are often used as a last line of defence for landlords guilty of breaking the law and being challenged on such breaches, and so it goes without saying that these must be scrapped. This must be implemented carefully, however, as some landlords may choose to raise rents to an unaffordable degree as a no-fault eviction by proxy. Measures therefore must be put in place to avoid this.

Of course, all of the best regulation and rights are pointless if tenants don’t know they exist or how to enforce them. This is why a key priority needs to be proper funding for local authorities to enforce regulations and dissemination of materials detailing rights and remedies to tenants, particularly students. This can be done in many ways, such as via public information campaigns, reframing the ‘How to Rent’ guide as aimed at explaining rights and remedies (including, for example, methods of claim), stricter penalties for landlords not providing the guide, or by encouraging universities and local authorities to provide the information actively to students.

These policies will not singlehandedly solve the wider housing crisis we face – but they would go some way to providing a more stable and equitable housing situation for many.

Johnathan Guy is an LHG member and Labour activist, currently working as a software engineer for a startup.