Hello Readers,
It’s been fairly quiet on the Rental Reform Bill front recently and landlords could be forgiven for thinking that with all the U-Turns around things such as NetZero policies, it’s been pushed back into the long grass.
If you wanted to brush up on what the bill includes, you can read the full details here, however in summary it’s a radical change for the rental sector including a huge shake up to how tenancies are managed by replacing assured shorthold tenancies with periodic tenancies and abolition of Section 21 in favour of a tightened Section 8 process.
It’s certainly had a bad rep from the private rental sector and undoubtedly will end up increasing costs for tenants, however at the same time should make their rental accommodation a better standard and more secure.
Well, with the Conservative party conference having stolen the headlines recently it’s probably no surprise that the Rental Reform Bill has made a comeback and a quick-fire update is how Michael Gove has confirmed that it is to get a second reading ‘this Autumn’.
Yes, it seems that it’s not been booted into the long grass… yet! I am in doubt that much will happen to the implementation however, before the next general election – after which, everything is probably up for grabs (for better or worse). We will have to see though and it’s one to watch for early 2024!
I have been reading about how, at the conference, Housing minister Rachel Maclean was trying to reassure the sector by stating a guarantee that ‘good landlords’ (whatever the government terms a good landlord) will be able to repossess their properties in ‘certain circumstances’.
Maclean commented:
“As a Conservative I want to make it clear that I support the private ownership of property and people’s right to rent those homes out, assuming they are playing by the rules,”
“Landlords need to be able to evict bad tenants and we’ve taken time recently to ensure our proposals in the Bill will work in practice – I understand that some landlords are worried that [following the removal of Section 21 no-fault evictions] they won’t be able to get their properties back.”
Who knows how this will pan out. There’s a fair amount of uncertainty out there at the moment when it comes to the political economic landscape and every landlord I speak with is keen to have some form of certainty!
I also thought I’d make a passing comment on the swing away from EPC requirements, with an interesting quote from LandlordZONE here:
“Beadle tells LandlordZONE that the recent scrapping of the EPC rules – or ‘staged improvement’ to property energy efficiency as Gove put it at the event – was down to the housing secretary listening to the NRLA’s argument that the extra costs of EPC upgrades would be passed on to tenants as higher rents…”
“The Housing Secretary is right to acknowledge the importance of a thriving rental market alongside all other tenures,” he adds.
“But the only way to achieve this is to develop policies that can secure the confidence of the vast majority of responsible landlords.
“When section 21 repossessions end, landlords need certainty that the courts will more swiftly process possession claims where there is good cause.
“Alongside, this, we need to reform a tax system which is penalising the provision of the very homes renters are struggling to find.”
Whilst there’s nothing particularly new here, it’s an interesting one to see how much has changed in such a short space of time!
Hasan
