Landlords – how much do you know about the new Rental Reforms coming in this year?

A long time coming

This has been in discussion for sometime, starting with the Conservatives and carrying on into the currently Government, perhaps unsurprisingly looking more stringent now.

What we are looking at so far

A few points which are likely to make the cut (though discussions are still ongoing) are:

– Tenancies will be open ended
No longer for 6 months / 12 months etc
-Tenants will be able to give 2 months notice to leave at any time
-Landlords can only give notice to tenants (which will be 4 months) if they are;
Selling
Moving back in
Doing major works
(And not before 12 months of tenancy has passed)
-Other grounds for giving notice to bad tenants will be under Section 8
(And will be more robust and quicker)
-Landlords cannot take more than 1 month rent upfront from tenants

Is this helping tenants or landlords?

If it may appear to look more tenant-focussed than landlord-friendly then the Section 8 increased powers are supposed to help redress that balance, though with the backlogs we have in courts that remains to be seen.

One of the newest additions has been the restriction on only being able to pay 1 month rent upfront. This will adversely affect those tenants with poor credit history, new jobs or self-employed, students, and those who have just arrived in the UK.

The future

This is all going to make renting out your property look completely different from how it does right now.
It will be much more time consuming and unpredictable to manage as tenants will effectively be on a ‘short let’ basis and can leave at any point with 2 months notice.

As always, if you have any questions or need any help navigating it then please get in touch!

Recent articles