The Government have today published their White Paper “A fairer private rented sector”.
The private rented sector currently offers the most expensive, least secure, and lowest-quality housing to a growing number of vulnerable people, including 1.3 million households with children and 382,000 households over 65. This is driving unacceptable outcomes and is holding back some of the most deprived parts of the country.
Many renters face a lack of security as they can be evicted without a reason at just two months’ notice (so called “no fault” section 21 evictions, under the Housing Act 1988). This means many tenants do not challenge their landlords or agents on standards. Renters also feel that they cannot put down roots in their local areas, which does nothing for community cohesion.
The system does not work for good landlords either, the majority of whom do right by their tenants and offer them a positive, secure living situation. They lack the ability to effectively tackle antisocial behaviour or deliberate and persistent non-payment of rent. Most landlords are trying to do the right thing but simply cannot access the information they need. Further, inadequate enforcement is allowing criminal landlords to thrive, which harms tenants and reputable landlords.
The A Fairer Private Rented Sector White Paper builds on the vision in the Levelling Up White Paper and sets out our plans to fundamentally reform the private rented sector and level up housing quality in this country. It sets the strategic direction for the PRS for the first time in a generation and demonstrates our ambition and determination to give private renters a better deal.
The White Paper sets out a 12-point action plan of how we will deliver a fairer, more secure, higher quality private rented sector:
Safe and decent homes
The PRS has some of the worst housing of all tenures. We will improve this by:
Delivering on our levelling up housing mission and require privately rented homes to meet the decent homes standard for the first time. This will give renters safer and better value homes and the blight of poor-quality homes in local communities.
Accelerating quality improvements in the areas that need it most. We will run pilot schemes with a selection of local authorities to explore different ways of enforcing standards and work with landlords to speed up adoption of the decent homes standard.
Increased security and stability
For too long tenants have felt powerless and unable to challenge poor practice. We want to change this. We will rebalance the law to deliver a radically fairer deal for renters, while making sure that landlords can regain possession of their property when needed. We will achieve this by: