We start this catch-up blog with the fact that despite being with the House of Lords for 6 weeks not a lot has happened, news wise, with the Renters Rights Bill. It has now passed through its committee stage and is now heading to the report stage which will then be followed quickly (probably on the same day) with the 3rd and final reading in the Lords before it heads back to the House of Commons for their consideration of any amendments and for Royal Assent.
As it headed through the committee stage, the Lords tabled over 330 amendments of which the Government rejected all the amendments proposed by opposition and backbench peers’ whist accepting only those amendments which they highlighted and debated on during the 3rd reading in the House of Commons. Those amendments have already been covered to some extent in our previous blogs.
During the debates there were several issues which the Lords felt would have a detriment to the bill and consequently to landlords as well as tenants, some of these being:
Pets – The peers felt that a tenant with a pet would remain in a state of ongoing state of housing insecurity in case a landlord withdrew consent for the pet in the property. The Government responded to this … once consent is given it cannot be revoked unless it became an anti-social behaviour issue.
Section 21 – The peers felt that court reform should be in place before the Section 21 notice was revoked due to the current backlog in the court lists. The Government responded to this … we are committed to court digitisation to improve efficiency.
Rent increases – The peers felt that tenants may challenge all rent increases as they would automatically go to a back logged First Tier Tribunal and no increase could be back dated if the First Tier Tribunal ruled in favour of the landlord, so tenants had nothing to lose. The Government responded that whilst they acknowledged the concerns raised, they said that all rent increase disputes would go through a filtering process so that unfounded cases could be screened out immediately which would help to alleviate pressure on the First Tier Tribunal system.
Therefore, the conclusion is that given the majority that the Government has in the House of Commons it is very unlikely that any final proposed amendments during the 3rd reading in the House of Lords will be passed by the House of Commons when it comes back for those considerations and debate.
So where does that leave us on timescales ….. No date has yet been set for the report stage and 3rd reading in the House of Lords although that is expected to happen within the next couple of weeks with progression through to the House of Commons by the end of June.
Once it has come back to the House of Commons it is expected to be brought back before the MPs to debate any proposed amendments and then go for Royal Assent before the House of Commons breaks for their summer recess.
The Government have already intimated that the following will happen:
- There will be a period of between 2 and 3 months from the date of Royal Assent to the commencement date of the legislation to enable landlords and agents to adjust to the new requirements and to put processes in place plus to bring any secondary legislation requirements in to being.
- The legislation will come in on a phased basis over probably 12-18 months with the big hit items being immediate such as:
- Abolishing Section 21 Notices
- Introducing greater Section 8 grounds
- Pet consents
- Rent reviews and limiting rent increases to once a year
- Discrimination against families and benefit recipients
While things such as the new single Property Ombudsman and landlord/property databases along with the Decent Homes Standard (We will visit the current proposals of the Decent Homes Standard in our next blog) will take longer to implement.
Given the above we can expect that the commencement date of the new legislation will be somewhere around October/November this year. As always, we are prepared for it and we will ensure that you and your properties remain complaint as the legislation comes in.
If you have missed any of our previous blogs, they can be found here