The Renters’ Rights Bill is Labour’s version of the Conservatives’ Renters (Reform) Bill, which was scrapped following Rishi Sunak’s surprise call for an election.
This new bill aims to “fundamentally reform the private rented sector” and improve the quality of housing in it.
It also seeks to “balance the playing field” between landlords and tenants by strengthening tenant security, rights, and protections. This bill will apply to England.
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What will the Renters’ Rights Bill include?
While we don’t yet have all the details about the specific proposals that will be included in the Renters’ Rights Bill, it’s expected to cover policies such as:
- Abolishing Section 21: instead offer new clear and expanded grounds for possession so landlords could reclaim their properties when necessary.
- Strengthening tenants’ rights and protections: would give tenants the ability to challenge rent increases and rental bidding wars.
- Pets in rental properties: landlords would be required to consider and couldn’t unreasonably refuse a tenant’s request to keep a pet. However, landlords could request insurance to cover potential pet-related damage.
- Decent Homes Standard for the private rented sector.
- Applying ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the private rented sector: establishing clear legal expectations and timeframes for landlords to deal with health and safety hazards.
- Creating a digital private rented sector database: putting together information for landlords, tenants and councils in one accessible platform.
- Supporting quicker and more cost-effective dispute resolution: introducing a new ombudsman service to provide “fair, impartial, and binding resolutions” for landlords and tenants.
- Making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants who have children or receive benefits.
- Strengthening local council’s enforcement powers: making it simpler for councils to identify and penalise rogue landlords and remove them from the sector.
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When will the Renters’ Rights Bill become law?
The bill has a long journey through parliament before it can become law, during which it may undergo significant revisions or even be rejected altogether.
In the meantime, Section 21 evictions remain unchanged, allowing you to use our free eviction-serving tool to serve one correctly and legally.
Does that include Awabs Law and the Decent Homes Standard?
Hi David,
These are proposed policies that have not yet come into effect – and may never do so.
Should these policies come into effect for the private rented sector, our tenancy agreements will be promptly updated to adhere to the new rules and regulations.
My point was really that those two things, (if they become law) are more a factor of ongoing management than tenancy creation. Telling Rent Now users that they neednt worry about any regulatory changes in the bill could be misleading.
I agree in principle that rents are set by the market, not by the individual circumstances of landlords. However, its likely that this landlord was faced with a choice of evict and sell up asap or increase the rent to cover costs that he could not cover any other way. £700 is a massive monthly increase, so I can only assume that the tenant was previously benefitting from an unsustainably low rent.
As to whether the rent should “pay his mortgage”, the answer is that any business that operates from premises theyve bought must set their pricing to cover all their business costs including any borrowing. Whilst larger businesses, like Tesco can absorb sudden large increases by increasing their prices incrementally over time, smaller businesses cannot and if no-one is willing to buy at the price they set, they fold.
“only the cost of the mortgage”??? No repairs then? no upgrading? No registration payments tp L/A? Agents costs? Elec and gas Certs? Epc ? Only Static . Cuckoo. Cuckoo. is the land you are in .