The Renters’ Rights Bill has moved another step closer to becoming law, with MPs agreeing amendments that include preventing landlords from taking more than one month’s rent in advance.
Despite opposition from Conservative MPs during its Third Reading, this was added to the legislation which will now go to the House of Lords. Other agreed amendments were that guarantors would no longer be liable for paying rent after a tenant’s death, a limitation on the obligation to pay removal expenses and that students will no longer be locked into an agreement more than six months in advance of moving in.
An amendment from shadow housing minister David Simmonds to force the government to review the impact of the Act on the housing market was rejected. He told the House that he was concerned the legislation created new concerns around availability and affordability in the PRS, such as "rent and housing costs are being pushed up and councils' lack certainty about funding to deliver the enormous increase in workload".
“It’s clear that landlords can’t recover properties quickly – it fails to ensure flexibility and freedom of contract," said Simmonds. "It takes the opportunity for landlords to make allowances for financially riskier tenants by taking away rent in advance and locks financially vulnerable people out of the market.”
Other MPs failed to convince Housing Secretary Matthew Pennycook to accept amendments around rent controls.
Labour’s Paula Barker said: “We need to come back to it because the PRS is a housing market that has lost all sense of proportion. We hear about struggling landlords who run businesses, many properties don’t have mortgages, yet rents continue to rise – we’ve lost faith in the landlord class to regulate themselves, yet we continue to trust them on the rent they charge.”
Pennycook (pictured) admitted: “Once section 21 evictions are done away with, unscrupulous landlords will no doubt attempt to evict tenants who assert their rights, by means of extortionate rent rises, however the government sincerely believe the introduction of rent controls in the PRS could harm tenants and landlords as a result of decreased supply.”
He added that the government would give private renters the protections they deserved with this Bill. “The current system is broken. The PRS still provides the least affordable, poorest quality and most insecure housing of all tenures – it’s an intolerable state of affairs. We will finish the job.”
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