Generation Rent demands free rent for tenants evicted after reforms pass

In a strongly anti-landlord statement on its campaigning website, activist group Generation Rent has made five additional demands it now wants added in to the Renters Reform Bill.

One of them is for a rent-free two month period when tenants move because a landlord wants to sell or place their family in the property.

The Bill is going through Parliament and has its latest stop at the committee stage in the House of Lords next week, but now the activists want changes.

The group’s statement says: “The Renters’ Rights Bill is set to do a lot of good for private renters. Ending Section 21 evictions will give entire generations a new security in their homes, like they have never felt before. However, it could, and should, go further. 

The government must:

• Introduce rent restrictions ending unfair rent rises. These would limit in-tenancy rent rises to whichever was lowest out of inflation and wage rises, meaning that rents could not outpace the cost-of-living or peoples’ wages. 

• Bring in tenant relocation relief in “landlord intention” evictions. When upfront costs, deposits (set at five weeks’ rent) and time off work are all considered, it costs the avarege renter household £2,216 to move home. In evictions where the tenant is not at fault, the final two months’ worth of rent should be waived by landlords so that renters are better able to save to cover moving and relocation costs. 

• Put restrictions on guarantor requirements for renters looking for a new home. While guarantors can be a way for some renters to access new homes, landlords should not be able to demand guarantors if they are not needed. Therefore, the government must restrict the scenarios in which a landlord can legitimately request a guarantor to those in which a prospective tenant cannot prove that the rent is affordable to them.

• Make sure landlords file eviction notices with the new database to prevent misuse. Since Scotland introduced Private Residential Tenancy agreements in 2017, one in five properties were still registered as being let on the property database after a sales ground was used. Stronger measures, therefore, need to be put in place to tackle potential abuse of these grounds. 

• Build more affordable homes and more social homes. There aren’t enough homes in the UK. We need more affordable homes and social homes, they need to be in places where people want to live, and they need to be adapted to peoples’ needs, including Disabled people’s.” 

On rent caps, Generation Rent states that these would do a world of good in stopping “unfair rent rises and keeping renters in their homes that landlords cannot price them out of.” It says the government should look to the Renters Rights Bill to stop in-tenancy rent restrictions increasing faster than wages and the cost of living. 

And on the call to waive rent for tenants who love, even when a landlord sells their property legally under the new legislation, the group says: “Where the tenant has done nothing wrong, the landlord should waive the final two months of rent, to give tenants the compensation required for expensive moves.” 

This article is taken from Landlord Today