Will the Renters Rights Bill be a government own goal?

What was needed was for the government to give measured, calculated thought to the short- and longer-term impacts of the Bill and its provisions before trying to rush it through parliament – but we see no signs of this happening.

The Bill has been drafted with good intent – and while there is no doubting that landlords do indeed want to attract good, long-term tenants, it seems that this is an excessively heavy-handed way of doing so and will be counter-productive in the longer term. The government appears to be trying to silence a noisy minority of bad landlords, while ignoring a compliant majority that serves the growing number of renters in a market that is desperately needed.

As the Bill has progressed, it has swung increasingly in favour of renters, with an increasing disregard for its impact on landlords. Indeed, the latest government amendments risk making the Bill even more challenging for landlords – exemplified by their recent row back on providing landlords with protection from damage claims under pet insurance – a requirement that tenants will no longer be required to comply with.

This is just one part of the radical sea change in regulation that will cause grave concern amongst landlords across the country as to the impact of the Bill. The latest amendments could turn out to be somewhat of a Government own goal – in the long term, its onerous provisions could result in the exodus of landlords from a nonviable market. This will ultimately drive-up rental costs – the exact outcome the Bill sought to avoid.

Even on a procedural level the bill is set to fail landlords. A drive for an expanded judicial infrastructure and resources – which needed to be bedded in before legislation was passed – hasn’t materialised.

Courts, already dealing with substantial backlogs, will see a sudden influx of disputes that they just don’t have the capacity to deal with. Further, tribunals are facing a similar situation and could be used by renters using the tenant-friendly protections in the Bill to delay reasonable rent increases, which could prove seriously detrimental to landlords, especially in this volatile economy.

This article was originally published in Landlord Today - Will the Renters Rights Bill be a government own-goal? - Landlord Today