Rental Reforms- Guidelines

Government Introduces Landmark Reforms for Fairer Private Rented Sector

The UK government has introduced a significant overhaul of housing laws, known as the Renters’ (Reform) Bill, which aims to provide safer, fairer, and higher quality homes for eleven million tenants across England. This reform is considered a once-in-a-generation change, fulfilling the government's 2019 manifesto commitment to abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, thus empowering renters to challenge poor landlords without fear of losing their home.

Key Features of the Renters' (Reform) Bill

The new Bill also protects over two million landlords by making it easier for them to recover properties when necessary. This includes situations where they want to sell their property, move in a close family member, or when tenants wilfully do not pay rent. Notice periods will also be reduced where tenants have been irresponsible, such as breaching their tenancy agreement or causing damage to the property.

The reforms will strengthen powers to evict anti-social tenants, broadening the disruptive and harmful activities that can lead to eviction and making it quicker to evict a tenant acting anti-socially. To ensure the new tenancy systems work for landlords and tenants, it will be introduced alongside a reformed courts process. More of the eviction process will be digitised to reduce delays.

Additional Provisions and Support

A new Ombudsman will provide quicker and cheaper resolutions to disputes, while a new digital Property Portal will enable landlords to understand their obligations and help tenants make better decisions when signing a new tenancy agreement. This will give confidence to good landlords, while driving the criminal minority out of business.

Tenants will also be given the legal right to request a pet in their home, which the landlord must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse. Landlords will be able to require pet insurance to cover any damage to their property.

The government will also bring forward legislation as part of the Bill to apply the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time, giving renters safer, higher quality homes and remove the blight of poor-quality homes in local communities. This will help deliver the government’s Levelling Up mission to halve the number of non-decent rented homes by 2030.

Reactions to the Bill

The Renters’ Reform Bill has been welcomed by various stakeholders. Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, expressed his satisfaction with the introduction of a statutory single private rental Ombudsman. Dan Wilson Craw, Acting Director, Generation Rent, highlighted the Bill as a huge opportunity to improve the lives of the 11 million people who now rent from private landlords in England. Ben Beadle, Chief Executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, welcomed the government’s pledge to ensure landlords can swiftly recover properties from anti-social tenants and those failing to pay their rent.

The Bill is a key part of the government’s mission to level up across the country and follows the wider housing reforms in the Social Housing Regulation Bill and Building Safety Act. These address the systemic issues identified following the Grenfell Tower tragedy on improving the safety and quality of social housing and how tenants are treated by their landlords.

Credit : Gov.uk