Improved renters’ rights are coming closer. Landlords predict a shrinking private rented sector. One thing is certain, new legislation gives councils a raft of new duties and responsibilities at a time when they face unprecedented demands. 

Royal assent for Renters’ Rights Bill, which was announced in the 2024 King’s Speech, is moving closer. Now in the House of Lords, it could become law by Easter, or the summer. The new law contains a change that has become a talisman for housing campaigners, one that the last Conservative government resisted.

So-called no-fault or retaliatory evictions, made under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, will end on day one of the act coming into effect. Private landlords, in theory, will no longer be able to ‘get rid of’ tenants who have the temerity to complain about poor conditions or rent increases.

The bill, when passed, will extend the Decent Homes Standard from social housing to the private rented sector and prohibit the use of rent increase clauses, requiring landlords to issue a Section 13 notice to increase the rent. Rent increase will be limited to once per year, capped at market levels. Tenants on benefits and those with pets should find it easier to rent.

The new law will create a digital private rented sector database, which, again, campaigners have sought for many years, and a new ombudsman service. Councils will be able to extend property licensing schemes, which impose additional responsibilities on landlords, without approval from the secretary of state – a change that many will welcome as a useful tool for levering up standards over large areas.

Paul Oatt, FCIEH, a local authority private housing regulation expert, welcomes the abolition of Section 21 eviction, which has already been implemented in Scotland. He notes: “When a tenant receives a Section 21 eviction, their landlord does not have to give a reason. From a human rights perspective, it’s very difficult for them to go court to defend their tenancy.”

The new law will allow a landlord to evict because they want to sell their property or for a family member to move in – but, in these cases, it will prevent them from re-letting for a year, or face a potential financial penalty. Civil enforcement penalties, available to councils since the Housing and Planning Act of 2016 (receipts for which can be recycled into enforcement services), will be increased.

Housing law is a mess

Oatt admits that housing legislation is a mess. To the benefit of lawyers, sections of the Housing Acts of 1985, 1988 and 2004 will still apply when the Renters’ Rights Act comes into force. The act, he notes, will give significant new responsibilities to already over-loaded local authority regulatory services, many of which are facing the simultaneous prospect of merging with their neighbours to become unitary councils.

The Renters’ Rights Act will extend Awaab’s Law responsibilities to act promptly on damp and mould to the private sector – which is laudable, he says, but an enormous responsibility. Just as councils struggle to eliminate hugely costly issues of damp and mould and flammable cladding to their own housing stock, the new law may stimulate solicitors to pursue no-fee class actions on behalf of an enormous group of new claimants: private sector tenants. Commentators fear that landlord–tenant disputes resulting from the new legislation will swamp an already overloaded legal system. Oatt sympathises with landlords who, he acknowledges, may now face costly delays. He says: “I think that’s a fair concern. I’ve literally just finished off a tribunal case that’s been dragging on since 2020. Tribunals are in an absolute mess.”

The application of a ‘pass or fail’ test on the presence of mould in privately rented properties, he says, contradicts the risk assessment basis of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. More seriously, a much-needed exercise to update HHSRS has been delayed. The intention of the new legislation is certainly to reduce injustices for tenants. But lawyers, he notes, are inventive and housing law is like an enormous piece of knitting – pull on one thread and you’re going to make a hole somewhere else. Oatt says: “Whenever you enact a policy and try to resolve an issue, you create other issues – this is the nature of housing legislation because the housing market is so volatile.”

In particular, he fears the return of no-fault eviction by the ‘back door’, through landlords invoking section 6B of the Housing Act 1988 that allows them to seek vacant possession of property for which a local authority has served a notice requiring major works.

Lawyers and landlords

Tenants’ campaigners have generally welcomed additional protections offered by the new law. It evolved from the Conservatives’ Renters (Reform) Bill, introduced in 2023 and was considerably strengthened by amendments introduced by Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook.

The private rented sector has doubled in size since the early 2000s. It now houses almost five million households and is the second largest form of tenure after owner-occupation. The sector is dominated by small landlords. According to government figures, 43% of landlords own one rental property, representing 20% of tenancies. Social housing stock has plummeted over the last few decades, while owner-occupation, an obsession of both major parties, has never been a suitable tenure for those who require mobility or whose income is uncertain.

We have ‘worst of both worlds’ housing, which has evolved through market forces. The ‘buy-to-let boom’ housing, which swelled the private rented sector from the late 1990s, is subject to economic cycles. The current situation places some of the neediest people in society in the hands of amateur landlords, to the detriment of both, and means that millions of families with children are living in housing, in often poor physical condition, and face the sword of Damocles of frequently being required to move.

The Law Society has welcomed the banning of no-fault evictions and an end to rental bidding wars. But it says: “The government must outline how it intends to equip courts with adequate resources to handle rising demand, while dealing with existing backlogs.” It has also called for expanded grounds for landlords to repossess properties using Section 8 eviction notices, for penalties against rogue landlords to be strengthened and more funding for recruitment and training of council enforcement teams.

The National Residential Landlords Association, the UK’s largest landlord association, supports the application of the Decent Homes Standard to the PRS, the extension of Awaab’s Law and measures to tackle discrimination. But it has warned of the ‘potentially devastating’ consequences of the Renters’ Rights Bill on the supply of homes to let and levels of rent.

Oatt notes that in the 1960s and ‘70s, when Labour passed legislation to protect tenants’ rights, private landlords claimed, erroneously, that increasing security of tenure and controlling rents would lead to a meltdown of the PRS. Back to the current situation, and he doubts that the sector’s size, 19% of UK housing stock, will, in reality, decrease, but he concedes that the new law could lead to a churn in ownership, so small landlords are replaced by larger ones.

He observes that there are ‘tame’ and ‘wicked ’problems’. The tame ones (like fixing a broken car engine) have clear parameters and known solutions; wicked problems (solving climate change) are complex and multifaceted, with no clear solution, involving multiple stakeholders with conflicting interests. Housing problems, he says, are wicked ones.

William Hatchett