What changes are going to happen in the Private Rented Sector and when will they become law?

I often get people asking me if they can still use section 21 or what exactly the new rules coming in under the Renters Reform Bill are going to be.

The answer is that we do not know.

The process of making a Bill into Law

It takes a long time for a bill to become an act of Parliament.

It has to have two readings in the Commons, go through a committee stage, a report stage and a final reading, as well as having to go through the same process in the Lords.  There is then a final stage before it gets the Royal Assent and becomes law.

You can see the progress of the Renters Reform Bill on the Parliament page here.   At the time of writing it has had its first reading only.  No date has been set for the second reading.

Bearing in mind that we are due to have a general election sometime next year, the government is going to have to get its skates on to get the process completed.  The longer they delay, the less likely that is to happen.

Changes to the draft bill

Then there is the fact that even if the Conservatives are able to get the bill through, it will undoubtedly get changed during the process.

Most changes tend to happen at the committee stage, and I suspect that many changes will be made – if the committee stage is ever reached.

For example, Gove has already indicated that he will be amending the bill to provide that landlords can’t give blanket prohibitions against families and pets.

They have also indicated that they will consider amending their plans for student lets.

So it’s not possible to state categorically what is going to happen.

There are indeed rumours that factions within the Tories are hostile to the Bill and the removal of section 21 and that this is why Sunak is backtracking.  Remember many MPs are also landlords.

So it is always possible that we will have a Labour government before the Bill becomes law, in which case, the bill will be dead.

So what are Labour’s plans?

I have had a look at the five ‘mission statements’ published by Labour.  The only mention of housing I could find was on page 18 of Labour’s ‘breaking down barriers’ mission, where they refer to making renting more secure with their Private Renters Charter.

I haven’t been able to find the Private Renters Charter document itself, but I understand that it promises to

• End Section 21 evictions;
• Reduce eviction powers for landlords whose tenants are in arrears;
• Introduce four month notice periods;
• Examine a scheme for ‘portable’ deposits making it easier and cheaper for tenants to switch properties;
• Allow tenants to have pets;
• Permit renters to make ”reasonable alterations to a property”;
• Create a national register of landlords;
• Initiate a legally-binding decent homes standard in the private rental sector.

However, as some of those are highly contentious, I suspect it would take considerably longer than the promised 100 days to get them on the statute book.

Keir Starmer is not stupid, and he will no doubt realise that he needs to keep landlords on side, at least until his party have been able to build enough social housing to reduce the housing shortage for low-income families.

So I suspect that the charter may be changed or even quietly dropped.  Changing housing law to make it better is not as easy as it sounds.

So in short

I doubt that their will be any big changes in the immediate future.  Although, of course, I could be wrong!