A self-proclaimed housing law expert says he has exposed the Renters Rights Bill for what it is – a mechanism to help councils, not landlords or tenants.
Des Taylor, a casework director at Landlord Licensing & Defence, says the Bill is portrayed as a tenants’ rights revolution. But he believes it is in fact “a strategic mechanism to relieve pressure on local authority budgets and waiting lists and to manipulate housing statistics.”
He’s told a rental sector conference that Section 21 – to be abolished when the Bill becomes law – has long allowed landlords to regain possession of their properties without needing to prove fault. Often, landlords have accepted arrears or property damage simply to obtain vacant possession, avoiding long, costly disputes.
ButTaylor claims that with the Bill’s abolition of Section 21, landlords will be forced to rely on specified grounds under Section 8 – a slower and often riskier route.
And he says: “Currently, tenants served with a Section 21 notice are advised by local housing authorities (councils) to remain in the property until bailiffs remove them. This triggers the local authority’s statutory duty to assist, often resulting in costly temporary or emergency accommodation placements.
“Under pressure from Parliament to cut emergency housing costs, local housing authorities now have a perfect solution: abolish Section 21 and deny access to homelessness support. Under the Renters Rights Bill, relatively few tenants evicted under certain legal grounds will qualify for help. Many others – including those with arrears – will be excluded. The result? A sharp drop in the number of tenants eligible for temporary accommodation, slashing council spending and shrinking waiting lists.”
And he adds that meanwhile, landlords seeking to reclaim properties for personal use or sale face up to 16-month delays, including a mandatory 12-month re-let ban if sales fall through.
If properties are subsequently empty, this generates yet more revenue for councils via double council tax on vacant homes.
In that case, he suggests pressure will mount for landlords to rent directly to councils or to the homeless. “The council wins again” he states.
On top of all of that, he says councils secure even more income because the Bill dramatically expands local housing authority powers to issue financial penalties for offences that once required court prosecution.
“Enforcement revenue, already weaponised under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, will explode further – all ringfenced for yet more enforcement. Many landlords have already seen fines of £5,000–£25,000 imposed for minor paperwork or licence errors, often without prior warning” he says, suggesting these fines are already “crippling small landlords, draining years of savings or pension plans.”
Taylor believes that with the Renters Rights Bill poised to transform housing enforcement into “an even harsher, revenue-driven regime”, the private rental sector must wake up.
And he concludes that it’s time the public, along with what he calls “the landlord-hating organisations and the tenant loving-charities” are made aware.
This article is taken from Landlord Today