Renters' Rights Bill

Written evidence submitted by Don Rowlands to The Renters’ Rights Public Bill Committee (RRB89)

Dear Sirs,

 

I am writing in my personal capacity as a successful landlord of holiday let and private rented accommodation to provide a written submission to the Bill.

 

I have followed with interest the various iterations of predecessor bills (such as the Private Renters Bill) which was promoted by Michael Gove during the Conservative Government and have read the latest proposals passing through Parliament.  I understand and support some of the themes underlying the implementation of the new Bill , in particular providing more security of tenure and rent controls for private residential tenants with families etc.

 

It seems to me , however, that the current blanket plan to abolish the Section 21 "no fault" termination process has not been as fully considered as it should have been.  The proposal in the current Bill to suggest that landlords must now rely upon the mandatory and discretionary grounds in the amended Section 8 notice procedure does not fully cover the myriad of different and legitimate reasons why a responsible landlord may need to regain possession of their property after a fixed period of the tenancy ends (which the previous Section 21 notice process of course allowed, subject to the statutory notice requirements).  A good example of this are properties let in areas of the country where many properties are capable of dual use for holiday lettings and longer term private rented use. 

 

The grounds currently set out in Section 8 would not permit a landlord who has previously let a property for holiday letting purposed but wanted (to the obvious benefit of the local rental market where private longer term lettings are often in short supply) to let to a longer term private rented tenant to in the future recover possession for holiday letting use.  This does not seem either just or equitable and may, in my view, inadvertently result in many landlords (who would otherwise be happy to maintain a flexible approach to dual use of their residential properties) to instead remove them from the private rental market as their options to obtain possession in the future for holiday lettings use would be greatly diminished. This further compounds the lack of supply of good quality housing in areas where there is already an undersupply of such properties and is directly contradictory to one of the other key Labour Government aims of using legislation more directly to help tackle the UK`s housing crisis.

 

I would respectively submit that , if the Section 21 process is to be abolished wholesale, then more time and thought will need to be given in the Bill to supplementing the mandatory and discretionary grounds for possession under the Section 8 procedure, as they are clearly not as extensive as they should be.

October 2024