The Renters Rights Bill currently wending its way through the House of Lords is the biggest change to the Private Rented Sector in the past 35 years.
Many people have different opinions about it, and we all see the bill through a prism of our own experience and needs. Tenants will have one view, landlords another.
But what are the government’s motives? What is important to them?
Protecting ‘working people’
One of the government’s top aims and manifesto commitments is to help and protect ‘working people’.
And although it is accepted that landlords do ‘work’ – there may be a few landlords just sitting on a beach sipping pina coladas while tenants hard earned money drops into their bank account, but they are not the majority – landlords as a class are not people the government consider it is their main duty to protect.
Most landlords will probably not consider themselves to be ‘wealthy’ (few people do), but they are very wealthy compared to, say, a young mother who has three cleaning jobs to help her pay for herself and her children and who, despite this still can’t afford to pay her rent and put food on the table.
On the whole, landlords tend to have reasonably comfortable lives, and the government believes that they can probably look after themselves.
MPs (many of whom are themselves tenants) will have had a steady stream of constituents coming into their surgeries telling them desperate stories of hardship, of forced evictions of families, some with disabled children, and massive rent increases which they cannot afford.
They want this to stop.
Stopping the flood of evictions
Apart from the distress caused to the tenants concerned, the high level of evictions has two other consequences:
- Increased pressure on the courts, and
- Increased pressure on Local Authorities
The courts
The courts have been at crisis level for a long time, due mainly to massive underfunding over the past 20 years or so.
At the moment, there is a high level of eviction claims as landlords use the no-fault section 21 ground to evict unwanted tenants while they still can.
However, once the bill has become law and is in force, they expect this flood of evictions to slow down.
All eviction claims will then need to be based on one of the ‘grounds’ set out in the legislation and supported by evidence.
No longer will landlords be able to evict in order to force tenants to accept a higher rent or because they are being asked to do expensive (or indeed any) repair work.
Local Authorities
Many of the tenants being evicted are unable to find or afford anywhere else to live in the Private Rented Sector. If they fall within the ‘priority need’ category, then they can call on the Local Authority to rehouse them.
Thousands are doing so. This is putting Local Authorities under enormous pressure as they don’t have homes to give them. So much of our social housing has been sold off under the ‘right to buy’.
So Local Authorities are having to pay to put families with children into unsatisfactory bed and breakfast accommodation, which is costing them a fortune.
In fact, the massive cost of all this is contributing to the deterioration of Local Authority finances, forcing some of them to issue ‘section 114 notices’, which is the equivalent of a declaration of bankruptcy. Many more, we are told, are on the brink.
Again, the government wants this to stop.
They have promised to build more social housing to help these people, but this will take time. Stopping the flood of evictions is one way to ease the pressure on Local Authorities.
Tackling rogue landlords
Many of the problems in the private rented sector are caused by rogue, and often criminal, landlords.
Although there is ample legislation in place to deal with them, Local Authorities have been mostly unable to do so. The reason for this is austerity and the reduction in their income over the past 14 years or so.
Many Local Authorities have been forced to make whole teams of enforcement offices redundant over the years and have not been able to afford to employ and train new ones.
The result is that bad landlords have often been able to operate with impunity.
Only a few Local Authorities (such as Newham in London) have proper staff and facilities in place to deal with rogue and criminal landlords, and they can’t do as much as they would like. Many Local Authorities have done no enforcement work at all for many years.
The Renters Rights Bill aims to tackle this:
- The penalty fines (which Local Authorities can keep to help with enforcement work, unlike Magistrates Courts fines, which just go to the Treasury) have been increased
- There are more offences which they can impose fines for. For example, for unlawfully evicting or harassing tenants in breach of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Previously, prosecution was the only option
- There is now a duty on Local Authorities to enforce the legislation in their area and
- A duty to provide reports to the Secretary of State on their enforcement work
- There is also the power to appoint a lead enforcement agency which will oversee enforcement work and take action itself where a Local Authority lacks capacity
It is very much hoped that these measures will kickstart Local Authority enforcement work. Which should hopefully reduce the amount of rogue and criminal landlords out there.
Getting something done
The government also wants to be seen to be doing something, and the Renters Rights Bill (unlike building more social housing) is not going to cost them anything!
Once passed, it will be something they can point to, to show that they are taking action against the problems that so many people face.
Find out more
Are you a landlord, letting agent or do you work in the Private Rented Sector? If so, note that we are running a Renters Rights Bill Online Conference on 11 and 12 March.
We have a fabulous lineup of speakers, and the event will help you (and your staff) understand the new legislation. Find out more here.
The post What does the government seek to achieve with the Renters Rights Bill? appeared first on The Landlord Law Blog.