New renter rights act is a bloody good thing!

[Pineapplewhip]

Naturally landlords have some justifiable concerns/questions but those that are up in arms about the whole thing are completely bloody immoral. The slum landlords have spoilt it for the good ones and the decent landlords should blame them and not the government for protecting people.

If you arent aware of the actual points of the bill - I've listed them below. I cant see how any reasonable person can disagree that it's just enforcing the most basic human decency and regulation.

• End to no fault evictions: landlords can only evict renters if they want to sell, move in themselves, move their family into the property or there are serious rent arrears. They have to prove they are selling too - they cant just say they are!

• Rent can only rise once a year, any rise above market rate can be disputed fairly and 2 months notice is given.

• Landlords can't refuse you for having children or being on benefits (if you prove that benefits/finances make the property affordable). This isnt about being on full benefits either. Many single parents need benefits to top up income.

• Landlord ombudsman - tennants can raise fair disputes and repair issues for free online and landlords cannot just ignore it/grey rock. Repeat offenders will be visable in the database. Landlords legally must act on the complaints.

• Faster action must be taken on damp and mould. Basic human rights! No more shitty emails from a middle man letting agent just blaming the tennant for not opening a window - when actually (for example) a house needs its brickwork repointing.

The only legitimate thing I have empathy for is the concern that it will be more of a process to evict non paying tennants as it will need to go through a court. However - this is why landlord insurance exists!!

Please ask yourself - if your child was renting - wouldn't you want them protected like this?

Landlords should get annual condition checks. I always did and it covered what I should do and if the tenant needed to do anything. I found them informative and useful and they were compiled by a specialist firm. Don’t let an EA do it themselves. I paid for the service but it was fair to all. Nothing was hidden and I did anything flagged up for me. Didn’t need to do much as I had good tenants and I had good properties which were kept well maintained.

Where are all the tenants going to go who have been served section 21 notices in the last few months? Why did the Government not come up simultaneously with some helping right to buy products? So that some of them can buy instead?
None of this makes any sense to me.
Landlords probably used section 21 for unreliable tenants who paid sometimes but not other times and as others said, do not report damage, treat the property badly, are genuinely just clueless and dysfunctional? I mean surely the “dysfunctional” type of person is around, we all know that, and they need to be housed by the State not imposed on the private sector that is run for profit. It is just never going to work.
And if people are going to rely on insurance, surely insurers will start wanting to know the identity of any tenants and any tenants that puts a foot wrong will become insurable? Could this have impact on other types of insurance for some tenants?

The Government may have to provide emergency funding to some Councils so they can underwrite some tenancies aka guarantee a rent to landlords trying to exit the market, at least in the short term. If it is true that thousands of people have been served with section 21s?

Landlords don't need to 'start' relying on insurance - insurance for landlords has always been available.

The truth is though that landlords aren’t renting out properties out of the goodness of their hearts.

They’re either doing it because they’ve got an empty property that they don’t want to sell, or they are running a business.

They more difficult things are made for the good landlords they will simply not do it anymore and will sell up. A lot of the bad ones will turn to renting HMOs because they are more profitable.

As a pp said private renting is not suitable for many people. The whole stay is broken and I doubt these new laws are going to make things any better for renters.

Well, The Guardian supported all this. Fair enough.

Now they’re reporting on the flood of eviction notices served to get tenants out before the law kicks in. Any evictions in progress won’t be affected.

Not so good now.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/30/late-flood-no-fault-evictions-ban-england-renters-rights-act

I know 3 people who are all being evicted having lived in the houses for several years.

This will end up hurting tenants more than anyone else, because a lot of good landlords will get out of the business and the bad ones will continue to behave badly. When they introduced ‘rent controls’ in Scotland, rents there rose more (proportionately) than in the rest of the UK. Trying to control the market never works out well. You’d think governments would have learned that by now, but no. They continue to pursue idealist principles as if believing it will somehow trump reality. IT never does.

Couldn’t agree more!

I’ve not read any responses as I was the victim of a section 21 just over two years ago and it almost drove me to suicide, so I know if I read any post sympathising with landlords I won’t react well, but I’m just so relieved that they’ve gone and sad at the same time that it came too late for us, it’s kicked up a lot of emotions for me today.

If you are running a business and want to be able to expense costs, then run it through a company, not as a private individual.
George Osborne announced the changes 11 years ago and it took 5 years to implement, and have now been in force for 6 years.
Plenty of time to get your ducks in a row.

You really are crying over spilt milk at this stage.

Of course there are. My friend has an apartment he doesn't want anymore after moving into a house but can't sell it because it's un-mortgagemable due to having the same cladding as Grenfell. So his only option is to rent it out or it sits there empty while he's still paying a mortgage on it (he bought it before Grenfell).

And no, he can't replace cladding because he doesn't own the whole block.

Or sell it at auction?

They've lived in the houses several years and (presumably) caused the LL no issues. But they've evicted the tenants because... what? What about the new act makes them think they'll have a problem with their tenants when they've had none so far?

And as I asked before, what's the alternative to private renting for people?

What, for a fraction of its value that won't cover the outstanding mortgage? Why?

For good reason.

Same here, I was served two S21s, two years apart. Completely uprooted my children the first time after living in our house for 11 years. New area, no family support, new schools etc. 2 years later the same thing happened again. Nothing to do with the RRA. Both landlords said they were selling and immediately relisted the properties at much higher prices. Neither asked me if I'd be willing to pay more first.

Neither time I've been able to access social housing, I was told we could be put into an emergency B&B 50 miles from home which was no use as my daughter was in the middle of her GCSE's at the time & they'd have had nowhere to be after school when I was at work.

I earn a decent enough wage & have rented privately since 2006 (have never missed a rental payment, never damaged anything) but am a single parent so was overlooked for endless properties before I eventually found replacements at the 11th hour. We've now had to move out of area again and am commuting for school/work because I couldn't move them again. My youngest has now missed out on a place at the high school the older ones are at as we're now out of catchment. It's impacted us in so many ways - financially, emotionally and I'm physically exhausted from the extra travel every day. The stress has been unreal. I've had a lot to deal with in life - but this last S21 pushed me to the brink of suicide too, I genuinely thought my children would be better off without me as I couldn't keep a roof over our heads and I didn't know what more I could do to change it.

And then you have people saying private renting isn't suitable for everyone...like it's a choice we make, while disregarding some other supposed option.

It's another option isn't it. Choosing to keep it and renting it out, is exactly that - a choice. As it is, he's got someone else paying his mortgage on an asset which he otherwise couldn't do anything with. So it's win win for him.

Completely agree with this. The landlords on here saying all tenants are bad because they never open their windows are in the same breath saying poor landlords are 'having' to evict now just in case they can't evict somebody on a whim when they feel like it next year?

I am not a landlord, but I reckon if you know interest rates are not coming down and you cannot raise the rent easily anymore to cover increasing interest rates on your buy to let mortgage (and you are personally liable for the rest) and you are paying 40 per cent tax on income received and cannot deduct higher interest rates = lots of small landlords panicking about their own finances? I mean why would you want to possibly personally bankrupt yourself potentially?

Private renting isn’t suitable because, as you say, you need a long term family home.

There should be council properties available for those that need one, is what I said.

The alternative for tenants who can pay a reasonable rent is that the Government gives them a deposit or guarantees a deposit directly to banks so they can get a mortgage? It may be on a smaller cheaper place etc. but would that not make more sense for many?
I mean if a bank is not lending and an insurance company is not going to insure certain tenants - then those need to be provided with social housing.
But asking private individuals to underwrite people who banks and insurance companies won’t underwrite = complete misunderstanding of economics/dynamics. The private individuals acting as landlords are not financially strong/big enough to do so?

But there isn't council properties available, so in the current climate what do you suggest?

Private rental is fine, if you can afford it. It just needs to be regulated properly so that landlords only go into it if they understand that it's a business not a favour and that if they have a mortgage, the benefit to them is someone else buying them an asset - not necessarily a cash profit every month.

I’m a landlord and totally agree with this bill and would like to think we abide by all of the points listed. We already have a majority of tenants on benefits and with children/ pets. The vast majority of our tenants are long term ( some 20 yrs plus).
Yes we increased our rents recently for the first time in 3 years( our costs are through the roof too).
I sincerely hope this drives slum landlords out of
of the market. Some people have no morals at all .

We rent out a flat as ‘accidental’ landlords due to circumstance rather than an initial business decision. We are decent and great tenants well / we used to live there ourselves so know how lovely it is. Its now a reliable source of income for us and it means i don’t have to work f/t due to health issues.

When our current tenants eventually move - and they will because it’s a small flat and they’re growing their family - we are probably going to sell up depending on capital gains liability. And of course we pay tax on the rent proceeds.

ATM we charge a bit less than market rate because we have great tenants. We have only been burnt once in 26 years and had to serve section 21. After that we upped our game and got landlord insurance, membership of the RLA etc.

Luckily we didn’t really lose out financially but it was a really stressful time.

It should be a fair system for all - it seems the govt want to tar all landlords with the same brush.