Generation Rent demands landlords reveal confidential information 

Information which landlords regard as confidential must be revealed to the public, the activists running Generation Rent are demanding.

This includes contact and financial data widely regarded as private.

A set of demands by Generation Rent, with regard to the new mandatory database included in the Renters Rights Bill include:

• Mandatory entries for landlord and letting agent contact details – The activists say: “This creates a dependable and direct line through which renters can get through to when they need to, especially with repairs”;

• A record of previous eviction notices the landlord has used – The activists say: “This would help to prevent the misuse of evictions by allowing local councils and renters to identify cases where a landlord may have tried to exploit a loophole, especially in cases where a landlord has a tenant apparently to sell the property, only to put it back onto the market at a higher rent.”

• Mandatory entries for actual rents charged – “This would mean that the rent tribunal, which the government are relying on keeping rents fair after the Bill comes into law, would know what local rents being charged to tenants are, not just what they were put on the market as (which is often higher than what the landlord is eventually able to rent the home for).”

• Previous relevant enforcement actions against a landlord – “Including this on the database would empower renters to make better decisions on who to rent from, such as cases where a landlord has committed an illegal eviction, rented an overcrowded home or failed to license a property legally.”

• Already mandatory safety documents and the government How to Rent guide;

• Information about previous deposit disputes where the tenant’s challenge was upheld. This would be information provided by the deposit protection schemes;

• Following the start of the tenancy, proof that the tenancy deposit had been placed into a legitimate scheme;

• Information about disabled access and disability features.

The list of demands has emerged from a small consultation held by Generation Rent with what it calls “231 private renter participants”.

This article is taken from Landlord Today