New Welsh Laws come into force today! How Landlord Law can help

Today (1 December 2022) is the day the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 finally comes into force.  It’s been a long time coming!

Immediate changes landlords will see are:

• The same treatment for both tenancies and licenses – both are now ‘occupation contracts’
• The need to give ‘written statements of occupation contracts’ (formerly tenancy agreements) to all contract holders or face a penalty of up to 2 months worth of rent – which renters can deduct from their rent payments.
• Longer notice periods under possession notices
• New rules for contract holders wanting to leave their contracts or change contract holders
• New forms – which are prescribed, meaning you have to use them, and
• A new abandonment procedure
• New rules on smoke and CO alarms, electricity, and on disrepair and fitness for habitation (bringing Wales in line with England)

Landlords – you should by now have complied with the new carbon monoxide rules for existing contracts/tenancies.  If you haven’t, you should deal with this pronto …

How Landlord Law can help

The Landlord Law Occupation Contract

We now have a new occupation contract for members to use.  This is for a fixed term followed by a periodic contract, and includes the terms you need as a landlord to protect your position.

As it includes all the terms of any subsequent periodic contract, you don’t have to worry about the new rules which strip out some of the terms in your preceding fixed-term contract if the renters don’t move out and a statutory contract takes its place.

Members will find the new contract on this page.

FAQ and articles

Over the past year I have been studying the new legislation and have put up new FAQ and articles explaining how the new rules work.

There are a lot of them.  More will be added if I spot any issues not covered or in response to members questions.

All of our FAQ and articles are linked from this page.

New Welsh checklists

There are new Welsh checklists, which are very similar to our popular English law checklists but based on the new Welsh system.

These give you step-by-step guidance on what you need to do from start to finish.

All the checklists are linked from the main Wales page here.

The member’s forum

All members can ask me questions on the member’s discussion forum – we have already had a few lively discussions leading up to today!

Questions are answered normally within 24 hours and often within a few minutes!

Members will find the forum here.  Guidance on how to use it is here.

Welsh landlords – what you need to do first!

Here is a tip for all existing Welsh landlords.  

Serve the notice with your address (which is required under the new rules) on contract holders now.  

None of the forms seem specially designed for converted contracts but probably best if you serve form RHW02.

Landlord Law members will find them here.  Otherwise, you can download them from the Welsh government site here.