Renters' Rights Bill

 Written evidence for the Renters Rights Bill Committee submitted by ACORN the Union (RRB14)

Executive Summary

1. ACORN is a community and tenants union which represents over 20,000 people across England and Wales. As a union we support individual tenants who are struggling with high rents, evictions, disrepair, harassment and discrimination to secure safe and affordable homes. We also campaign locally on private rented housing; running campaigns for landlord licensing, campaigns against bidding wars which have collected pledges from local agencies, and campaigns calling on councils to exercise their powers against disrepair and discrimination. We are a member of the Renters Reform Coalition, and have taken part in numerous stakeholder meetings and campaigning days across the course of the Renters Reform and Renters Rights Bills.

2. Overall we are pleased and very supportive of the bill’s mechanisms to provide renters with improved security and living standards. The end to Section 21 and strict conditions around new no-fault grounds are an essential measure to curb homelessness, and build tenants’ confidence to raise issues without fear. We support the creation of the private rental database and ombudsman and are pleased to see bidding wars banned by the Bill. The introduction of the Decent Homes Standard and Awaabs Law is very welcome as are the measures laid out so far to end discrimination against certain groups of tenants.
3. However, there are areas where we think the Bill can and should be strengthened. ACORN is a democratic organisation.Our members voted on 5 key areas for improvement to the Renters Rights Bill, as identified by the Renters Reform Coalition. (Renters Reform Coalition 2024) ACORN supports the other policy suggestions laid out by the Renters Reform Coalition in its document "Roadmap for Reform" but will focus this evidence on the 5 areas voted on by ACORN members. These are:

● Ending Illegal Evictions

● Supporting Landlord Licensing

● Capping Rent up Front

● The Right to Withhold rent for Serious Disrepair

● Making Renting Affordable

Each section covers the rationale for the changes we want, some case studies of ACORN members, and some specific policy asks.

 Ending illegal evictions

4. ACORN is all too aware that some landlords serve section 21 eviction notices in retaliation when renters raise issues with problems in their homes. We are deeply concerned that once Section 21 is banned, some landlords will turn to illegal methods to force their tenants to leave. In our survey ‘Experience of Private Renting’ (Cullum, 2022), only 51% of tenants who had been asked to leave had been given a legal eviction notice. 18% of tenants said they had been threatened with eviction after raising an issue with their landlord, and 11.2% said they had actually been evicted following a complaint. This Bill must address illegal evictions to ensure tenant security is protected and landlords unwilling to maintain homes are deterred from trying to illegally evict tenants instead.

5. There is a staggeringly low prosecution rate against landlords who illegally evict their tenants. 99 out of 100 landlords who illegally evict tenants are not brought to justice. (Cambridge House Team 2023) Councils have the powers but not the duty to investigate and act. On the rare occasion that a case makes it to court, the evidence threshold required is difficult to reach and the fines given out are typically around £1000. This fails to act as a deterrent against this behaviour - particularly as this figure is less than the average monthly English rent.

6. ACORN deals with multiple illegal eviction attempts every year. In our experience if tenants call the police when a landlord is trying to evict them illegally, the police frequently say (incorrectly) that this is a civil matter and they have no power to intervene. To give an example, an ACORN member in Brighton returned from a holiday with her family to find her landlord had changed the locks. When ACORN called the police, they threatened to arrest people for obstructing the landlord's access to the home and helped the landlord remove the tenant’s belongings. The tenant had to negotiate with the police to stop the landlord throwing her things away. Just last month an ACORN member in Leeds was served several invalid eviction notices over a series of months. His landlord has taken several attempts to intimidate him, including coming into his property and removing his personal items, ripping out the internet, and shutting off the internet countless times. The fuse box was turned off, wired shut, wires removed, and on one occasion two men came into his home with knives and cut the wires in an effort to leave him without power. He has spent countless hours on the phone to the council and the police, with both agencies being nearly entirely ineffective.

We suggest the following measures to ensure that protections against illegal evictions work:

● Give local councils a statutory duty to investigate all illegal evictions;

● Increase the maximum fine for civil penalty notices to £60,000;

● Change law around illegal evictions so they are easier to prove and cannot be avoided by landlords sending others to enact the illegal eviction by expanding the lower "mens rea" standard for the ‘harassment offence’ to everyone, (not just the landlord,) to define behaviour that would cause illegal eviction to be that which is ‘likely to cause someone to leave’ rather than intentionally done to force someone to leave and introduce a rebuttal that a tenant can reasonably presume the person they pay their rent to is their landlord;

● Lower the standard of proof renters need to get a rent repayment order from criminal to civil;

● Direct and train police forces in their powers against this criminal offence;

● Ensure local authorities have additional funding to carry out enforcement on illegal evictions properly.

 Support Landlord Licensing Schemes

7. ACORN has seen local licensing schemes help improve conditions for renters in different parts of the country. Local authorities have had the discretion to apply licensing schemes since April 2006 under the Housing Act 2004 but since 2015 have required the Secretary of State’s approval for any significant expansions (beyond 20% geographical or numerical coverage). We have seen that councils have to jump through many hoops to get schemes covering more than 20% of their area approved. We have campaigned for landlord licensing in Brighton, Bristol, Coventry, Lambeth, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Newcastle, Norwich, and Sheffield. Our members support landlord licensing because it gives local authorities the ability to inspect homes without a tenant having to raise an issue themselves. Knowing that landlords need licences has been reassuring to our members, and our most recent national conference voted to support the expansion of landlord licensing schemes wherever possible. The schemes are also self-funding, and are a great way for local councils to be able to carry out targeted enforcement without breaking the bank. In Brighton, the consultation on landlord licensing received the highest number of responses of any local public consultation the council had ever held, with the overwhelming number being in favour. ACORN union organiser Naomi Gann said: "Our members in Brighton face horrific issues with renting. For example, a member's flat burned down because there was faulty electrical wiring and no smoke alarm; another almost lost her child when a ceiling fell in and broke her collarbone; and dozens have become ill after mould exposure. Members were over the moon when we finally got the council to introduce landlord licensing. It starts to re-balance the power between renters' and landlords. Members said that knowing the council has the power to revoke licences, and also that landlords now need to background-checked, were particularly promising changes."
8. Over the course of our campaigning we have seen areas where the process for implementing a scheme beyond 20% could be made simpler - and councils who are trying their best to improve things for tenants having multiple unnecessary hoops to jump through. Branch representatives from Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham and Lambeth all said that councils were not against bringing in wider licensing schemes in principle and recognised that issues were rife in much wider than 20% of their areas, but were reluctant to take on the expense, time and risk involved in putting in an application for a wider scheme when it could be rejected by the Secretary of State. We would also like to see the discrepancy between HMO licensing and selective licensing resolved, so that in both cases licences can be revoked if there are poor conditions in the home.

9. We would like to see barriers to councils who want to run landlord licensing schemes removed and for councils to be able to make decisions about how much of their city is licensed. We want to see::

● Schemes to be allowed to run for up to 10 years;

● the Secretary of State veto removed;

● for licences in discretionary schemes to be able to be revoked to to poor conditions;

● Removal of the need for councils to prove that the areas they want to licence contain a high % of privately rented housing.

 The Right to Withhold Rent for Serious Disrepair

10. Data from our Private Renters Survey England 2023 (ACORN the Union 2023), found that nearly 2/3rds of respondents agreed with the statement: "I am concerned about the effect my home is having on my physical and/or mental health". Here are some examples of current problems renters are facing with serious disrepair. An ACORN member and her family in Aston are living with severe mould and damp in nearly every room. Almost every window seal is broken so the house is very cold, and a leaking sink leaves her bathroom floor permanently wet. These issues haven’t been fixed for 2 years despite multiple complaints to the landlord. Our member’s landlord in Oxford refused to fix a serious roof leak that made the room unusable for the family as they were worried the ceiling could fall in on their child. The windows won't close properly and their child with complex needs is at risk of opening them and falling. The landlord has refused to fix these issues for over a year. Our member in Sheffield complained to the council about serious damp and mould. After the council sent out an inspector, the landlord was given an informal notice to do works within a certain timescale, but didn’t issue an improvement notice. Our member was given a Section 21.

11. The bill includes much improved recourse for tenants through rent repayment orders which ACORN supports. We are also very pleased to see efforts to improve local authority enforcement and the introduction of higher penalties for landlords. However, many of these mechanisms are retroactive, rent repayment orders rely on tenants having the time and energy to act - and council enforcement processes can take a long time. We also know that it will take time for tenants to begin to feel confident raising issues with their local authority. Our surveying showed that half of tenants had decided not to raise an issue with their council for fear of landlord retaliation. (Cullum 2022) When a tenant is living in unsafe conditions right now, the ability not to pay rent until the problem is fixed would act as a strong deterrent for landlords to refuse to act, and does not rely on tenants having the time and confidence to go to their local council. This approach could be tied to the timescales laid out in Awaab’s Law. Awaab’s Law will set out much stricter timescales for damp and mould to be addressed, but if these timescales are broken the onus is on the tenant to take legal action. Instead, if timescales are not met, tenants should be able to pay their rent to a third party - which could pay it to the landlord if they prove works are completed in good time, or back to the tenant if the landlord doesn’t fix things quickly enough. We are calling for:

● the introduction of a mediated rent pause, which can be started if a landlord exceeds set timescales for repair;

● the government to consult on mechanisms to realise this as part of its consultations into applying Awaab’s Law in the private sector;

● Timescales for repair as set out in Awaab’s Law should reflect the severity of having to live in a dangerous and potentially life threatening home.

 Cap Rent in Advance

12. We are pleased that the government will be outlawing bidding wars, a practice we have campaigned against locally, which makes accessing rented housing much harder for renters without high disposable incomes. The Bill could be improved by capping the amount of rent landlords can ask up front, as this is another type of bidding war which disadvantages poorer tenants. Low income tenants are struggling to secure tenancies because many landlords and agents ask for several months rent in advance. This is a widespread practice and particularly affects benefit recipients. Recent research we undertook revealed that 1 in 4 tenants had been asked to pay over 6 months rent, but that benefits claimants were 3x as likely to be asked to pay a year in advance than someone not receiving benefits. (ACORN the Union 2024) The government has made clear that discrimination against claimants will not be tolerated, but if landlords and agents are allowed to continue asking for multiple months rent upfront this will continue to discriminate against them indirectly. A survey respondent said "I have been told by various letting agents that because I am in receipt of benefits … that I will not pass their affordability checks (despite the housing element of UC covering the rent, and a history of over a decade of 100% on time rent payments) and therefore need to provide 12 months rent upfront in order to apply." We received dozens of similar testimonials. Tenants can also end up out of pocket if they have paid rent in advance but have to move out unexpectedly. An ACORN member in Brighton paid 12 months rent in advance to secure a home - £15,000, which he borrowed from family. Due to a relationship breakdown he needed to move out part way through the tenancy, but despite the landlord finding a new tenant, the landlord won’t return the money for the months he didn’t live in the home. He is down £8,000. We would recommend that the government:

● Legislate to prevent landlords or agents being able to ask for or accept more than 1 months rent in advance. This will level the playing field for all renters, no matter how much disposable income they have.

 Make renting affordable

13. 1 in 5 renters are spending more than half their income on rent. (Canopy, 2024) This lowers quality of life and damages the wider economy because tenants aren’t spending elsewhere. High rents are driving communities apart. Adult children aren’t able to live near their families in the communities they grew up in. Rent hikes are forcing tenants to move, and stopping them settling and taking part in community life. 56% of our survey respondents had been given a rent rise in the 12 months before the survey opened, and 22% of them had had to relocate. (Leonard, 2023) If landlords are able to raise rents without a cap, this could act as an economic eviction and undermine the bill's efforts to provide security.

14. At ACORN we see the outcome of underregulation of rents every day. A 98 year old ACORN member, had been living in her flat in Wythenshawe for 18 years. She received a 66% rent increase last year and disputed this at the rent tribunal and lost. She was then served a Section 21 because she couldn’t pay. Recently another member was given a 74% rent rise and couldn’t afford to pay, she was served a Section 21 when she told the landlord that she couldn’t afford it. Another member and her family are facing eviction in Southwark after being unable to pay a 25% rent rise. It can be nearly impossible for many tenants to save for a deposit to buy their own home because they are giving increasing proportions of their income to their landlords. This bill is an excellent initiative to provide improved security and standards for renters, but it should do more to address the lack of affordability - and the impacts this has on individuals, communities and the wider economy. We would like to see:

● a cap on in-tenancy rent increases at the lowest of either inflation or wage growth (median of the last 3 years), to avoid unaffordable rent increases being used as a backdoor eviction method;

● The establishment of a National Rental Affordability Commission to investigate effective methods to make renting more affordable, including an investigation of rent control measures.

 Further policy asks

 

15. We also support the following measures to improve the Renters Rights Bill - as laid out in the Renter’s Reform Coalition’s ‘Roadmap to Reform’.

● No-fault eviction compensation: an automatic right to non-payment of rent in the final two months before a tenant vacates, in cases where a landlord has used no-fault eviction grounds.

● A two-year protected period against new no fault grounds evictions (up from one year in Bill)

● All possession grounds to be discretionary, to allow courts to consider all factors and where possible avoid or postpone a damaging eviction

● Strengthening enforcement through:

○ Ring-fenced funds for local authorities depending on the number of rented homes in their area

● Ending discrimination in the private rented sector by:

○ Limiting situations where a landlord can ask for a guarantor to when the tenants income will not cover rent asked & the landlord doesn’t have insurance for non payment of rent

○ Stronger protections against disability and racial discrimination, including abolishing Right to Rent and giving landlords a legal duty to make adaptations for disabled tenants by accessing the disabled facilities grant

References

ACORN the Union. 2024. "Rent up Front Poll." ACORN the Union. https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/rent_up_front.

Benjamin Leonard. 2023. "Private Renters Survey England; Safety, Security and Affordability (2023)." ACORN the Union. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TDFYqMyBMBPDimrkDASOBeoLF-W6V9VA98Si7T0eXYQ/edit.

Cambridge House Team. 2023. "New Safer Renting report: 2022 illegal eviction count update." Safer Renting. New Safer Renting report: 2022 illegal eviction count update.

Canopy. 2024. "Canopy." Canopy. https://www.canopy.rent/rental-affordability-index/q2-2024.

Cullum, Anny. 2022. "Experience of Private Renting - January 2022." ACORN || Union. https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/experience_of_private_renting_january_2022.

Renters Reform Coalition. 2024. "Roadmap for Reform." Renters Reform Coalition. https://rentersreformcoalition.co.uk/sites/default/files/Roadmap%20for%20Reform%20RRC%202024.pdf.

18th October 2024