The Renters’ Rights Bill is a crucial step towards ending the housing crisis.
This new legislation will :
- Abolish Section 21 evictions for both new and existing tenancies at the same time, giving all private renters immediate security and assurance.
- Apply Awaab’s Law to the private rented sector. This will ensure that all renters in England are empowered to challenge dangerous conditions.
- Apply a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time. Landlords who fail to address serious hazards can be fined up to £7,000 by local councils and may face prosecution for non-compliance.
- A ban on rental bidding wars, by cracking down on those who make the most of the housing crisis by forcing tenants to bid for their properties. Landlords and letting agents will be legally required to publish an asking rent for their property. They will also be banned from asking for, encouraging, or accepting any bids above this price.
- Ban in-tenancy rent increases written into contracts to prevent landlords implementing higher rents mid-tenancy, often to push out the current tenants. Under these reforms, landlords will only be allowed to raise the rent once a year, and to the market rate.
- Abolish blanket bans on tenants with children or those in receipt of benefits to ensure fair access to housing for all.
Ensuring that everyone has access to a safe, secure and genuinely affordable home is incredibly important. When the Bill was being debated in the House of Lords, Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Lords Minister for Housing and Local Government), made several important points about the amendments being put forward. In particular, in relation to the amendment on increasing the scope of the student eviction ground 4a beyond HMOs to include one and two bed homes, Baroness Taylor emphasised that:
“We have thought very carefully about the design of ground 4A. Limiting it to HMOs captures the bulk of typical students—that is, groups living in a house share. Meanwhile, students who need more security of tenure, such as single parents living with their children, postgraduate couples living together who have put down roots in an area, or families containing students, will be protected.”
Baroness Taylor was speaking from personal experience as someone
“who undertook a degree as a mature student with three children and a full-time job, I say that we simply must not assume that all students are the same. This is the opposite of elitism. It is ensuring that all student circumstances are taken into account and that those who need the greater stability that assured tenancies offer can have that option.”
You can read the full House of Lords debate here, you can also watch Baroness Taylor’s speech here.