Renters Rights Bill

[Lsgandhi]

I recently renewed my fixed term rental agreement for a year. I wanted a longer lease but the landlord mentioned there would be no guarantee we could continue living in the property once the Renters Rights Bill becomes law. Can someone explain? Does it mean the landlord will likely sell up?
thanks

OP wanted an explanation of the RR Bill. All you have done is summarise the facts they could read for themselves. Well done you for rewriting war and peace.

If you put your finger on your mouse and move it either up or down, you can scroll right past posts on internet forums where people are trying to help other people and you don't like it.

Try it! It'll make you feel like a fully-fledged grown up.

@KievLoverTwo
Well written and thought out replies. Do you think National Insurance will be implemented for landlords? If so, any ideas of the impact on the rental market? Thank you.

Exactly. If fixed rents ends how that gonna protect the renter as not 12 months guarantee??

Even more will probably sell and there will be even fewer rental properties, pushing up prices and making it even harder for people who need to rent
When me and DH bought our first house I kept my flat and rented it out, this was 20 years ago. I recently inherited a house and although I know it will rent out very easily I won't even contemplate it.
The only people I know who are making money now have HMO's or multiple properties

Not necessarily . A lot of tenants wouldn’t meet the requirements for a mortgage never mind be able to afford one .

Yeah, I think it's quite likely. But I don't think they'll target small time landlords with <5 properties, they'll target portfolio landlords. Otherwise, they'll alienate their largest voting demographic (boomers).

The Government recruited 45k new civil servants (I can't remember if it was just in one month last month or in the quarter) whilst the press berate them for the massive black hole in finances, so I do think something very, very big is about to go down in the Autumn budget. I don't think you'd recruit that number of people knowing the press and public are against you unless the outcome is going to wipe out a LOT of their debt.

At least, I hope they wouldn't be that stupid.

My money is on Council Tax reform.

It will push out the slumlords who have no intention of ever carrying out any repairs. They'll have a revolving door of tenants who just up and leave within two months. Imagine budgeting in 1k every two months for agency fees on a rental that's charged at 600pcm? It'll wipe out your profit margin.

In the short term, lots of LLs will sell up, but those properties will be bought by other LLs who have far greater financial means to manage their properties responsibly.

It also means tenants won't get stuck in a property with mould etc for 12 months with LLs who refuse/can't fix it.

There aren't enough council resources to force LLs to be responsible.

If they can afford the rent thrn they'd be able to afford thr mortgage in most cases.

Absolutely not true because of the small matter of deposits. Lots of people can afford rent but don’t have savings to fund a deposit to buy. Most of my family included.

I understand that, but if there are a flood of rental properties on the market thrn prices will go down and less of a deposit would be needed.

Thats the theory and I genuinely hope thats what happens but I doubt it

Deposit?

I’m not a BTL landlord, so I’m just starting with that before I’m accused of being ‘on their side.’

this whole thing is bonkers. Renters NEED landlords if they cannot yet (or won’t ever) afford to buy a property. In the past, the government provided an alternative in council housing, but they sold them off and didn’t replace them.

Often, landlords have a mortgage on the property, and they don’t always have any control on the mortgage payment going up. And yet here we are in a position where they are told they can’t increase the rent to match, so the tenant is protected from the mortgage increase but the landlord has to find the money from their own pocket?

And they can only offset the interest part of the mortgage, not all of it. So they are taxed as though their rental income is higher than it is.

And they pretty much can’t get tenants out, either.

I wouldn’t be a BTL landlord for anything, I’m guessing a lot of them will sell up. That’s not great for the renter, is it?

One of the valid reasons for evicting a tenant is "ant social behaviour" but the bar for this is set very high. It doesnt mean you can be evicted because some neighbour snitched to your landlord about things which are not strictly against the lease. It means issues like violence or threats of/drugs/sub letting/running a brothel/persistent late night noise and other issues which can get the LL into serious trouble with the police or local authority,

Its not in the LLs interest to intervene and sour their relationship with a tenant who is paying their mortgage just to please a tittle-tattle neighbour. They are only going to be interested if the behaviour is damaging the property or unlawful in some way, I asked this question once on a professional LL forum and most of them said they would not get involved in a personal dispute between a tenant and a neighbour.

There will likely be a bit of an unsettled period while some landlords sell up and rental stock falls.

You can’t blame them - it’s a lot of hassle to evict a bad tenant through the courts and it takes forever. They’re talking about making it compulsory to have an EPC of a level that would be impossible unless you replace the windows in older properties. They’re talking about charging NI on rental income.

Its up to individual LLs to decide for themselves whether they want to tuck in for the long haul or check out at this stage, isn’t it.

Some will sell and there will likely be a reduction in rental stock available. This drop in supply would ordinarily just drive rents up but the government is restricting that artificially.

I think the upshot for renters will be:

It may well get harder to find a property to rent, with lots of prospecting renters chasing fewer properties. Landlords may well get very picky about who they let to, knowing that they may be ‘stuck’ with them, so I’d expect renters who look like excellent prospective tenants, with excellent references, may be at the top of the pile but renters with a weaker profile may struggle to get somewhere.

I’m selling my (one) BTL to a bigger property investor - I’m done - but some ex-rental stock will be sold to FTBs. My son and his boyfriend have saved a small deposit and are in the process of buying a little - ex-rental - flat. It’s cheap because it’s scruffy and, like me, the landlord just wants out.

OP, I’d speak to your landlord and ask him
whst he means and what he’s thinking of doing. X

I look after a student HMO for an elderly relative & am although I'm all for improving renters' rights, (& I am a helpful & fair landlord!!) I am worried about the 2 month notice at any time for student tenants in an HMO.

From what I understand this 2 month clause will not apply in purpose built halls of residence, but that it will apply for privately owned HMOs...

If this is the case a student could leave halfway through their (what was previously a fixed-term) tenancy and it would be pretty impossible to rent the room for the remaining time.

Landlords just won't be able to take the risk of huge gaps in rent and will sell up in droves, causing a scarcity of property & therefore an increase in rent costs.
If anyone have any professional insight with this specific area that would be great!! Thanks!

Ex-LL here. Sold up last year precisely because these changes were coming in and I worked out the potential financial risks involved were simply becoming too great.

I don't think it will work how Labour hopes though. Rather than making things better for tenants it will make it nigh on impossible to rent a decent property unless you can prove you are the perfect tenant. There is already a massive shortage of rental property and this is getting worse as Landlords are still leaving in droves, or converting to holiday/air BnB if in the right areas.

With a choice of 30-50 applicants per property (here in SE England) landlords will have no problem choosing the well-paid professionals with fantastic credit history and no pets or children. People with pets probably won't be able to afford the insurance so that won't be the big 'win' Labour think it is either.

Student landlords are also concerned about how to manage things if fixed term tenancies (covering an academic year) aren't allowed and students can just up sticks with one or two months notice. The likelihood is that rents will rise to cover the risk of void periods.

The people who struggle to find a decent, affordable rental property are simply going to struggle more...

This is really helpful, thank you for posting this.

The landlords who want to keep on increasing prices (a few friends got their rent up 20% or leave) or the ones who don’t want kids hence they get rid of couples when they are pregnant (happened in London to 4 couples of friends).

It may well get harder to find a property to rent, with lots of prospecting renters chasing fewer properties. Landlords may well get very picky about who they let to, knowing that they may be ‘stuck’ with them, so I’d expect renters who look like excellent prospective tenants, with excellent references, may be at the top of the pile but renters with a weaker profile may struggle to get somewhere.

It is already like this in most areas unfortunately
2 working adults with no children and not pets who earn over 30 times the monthly rent and have been in their jobs over 6 months are front of the queue every time

I don’t have an issue with landlords. I have rented privately in various parts of the country , mainly where properties are in short supply.

We lived in a property till quite recently for about 8 years but were evicted at 2 months notice as the landlord wished to sell up which changed my perspective in the issue not that I can do much about it.

over the last few years there have been purpose built rentals or build to rent that have come into the property. Even those have downsides !

‘2 working adults’

They would be front of the queue / preferred for mortgages too !

If they had enough deposit

The key thing is do you have a break clause? If your AST has no break you will be well protected. The implementation date is confirmed as 1/5/2026. This means that from this date section 21 is banned and also all AST become periodic. Any section 21 that have been issued before this date but expire after this date are likely to be void. To evict you from 1 May your LL would need to evidence he or a family member is moving back in and is forbidden from renting property out for 12 months and the same for selling they would need to provide evidence they are selling and also banned from renting for 12 months after you move out. You’d need to be 3 months plus behind with rent for LL to use that as a reason to evict you. The courts will be jammed so even if LL did use a section 8 it would likely be a long time before any courts looked at your case. If you have a break clause this gives landlord ability to serve section 21 in December which would expire in June which still may make the section 21 void but get legal advice