Tenants: Government rules meant to protect you just gave you a rent increase

Mick Roberts is right. Everything about labour’s new Renters Rights Act is inflationary and labour’s proposals for its new landlord database just make things even worse. The Act and the proposals for a new database drive competition out of the market, drive costs up and drive rents up.

There are things that the government could do to reduce the costs of renting out for landlords and to increase choice and competition for tenants, including benefits tenants….but it isn’t doing them.

… And this is on top of all the other taxes that Landlords have to pay VAT on contractors charges, tax on overall profit, VAT on agents fees (and other professional fees) tax on insurance, Sec. 24 tax on unincorporated Landlords.
The Government (and previous Tory Governments as well) take more in tax than I make in net profit for doing f**k all.

Give it a year and all tenants will be advised to challenge rent increases, since this will delay them by a year due to backlogs.
So that rent increase? You need to estimate next year’s increase and add that to this year’s too.
Do we know yet whether the 1-year moratorium on future rent increases starts from the last time you issued a Section 13 or from the time the Tribunal actually increases the rent?

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 15/09/2026 – 11:33
The s13 form asks for the date of the last increase not the date it was requested. Think this answers your question!

£6 a month, Plus. Admin.costs. !

Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 15/09/2026 – 12:30
Approximately 19% of households in the UK rely on the private rented sector: With mortgage rates probably going up shortly as interest rates rise, fewer people will be able to buy and so the UK still needs a healthy private rental sector; Does anybody have any thoughts on what the government could do to reduce the upward pressure on rents created by the Renters Rights Act?

Now ask the tenants what they prefer, increased rent or RRA? O and remind the housing minister that the RRA will decrease rents.

Reply to the comment left by JaSam at 15/09/2026 – 17:17
I think what they keep saying is that all these council houses they are going to build are going to solve the problem….it’s part of their 1947-1976 labour fairyland myth. Almost 20% of UK households depend upon the private rental sector, a private market, and therefore they depend upon competition in this market. There are other successful social housing models around the world (including in Norway) other than council housing….if you give money to councils, how do you know they are going to build them? If the council goes bust (and they do) what happens to these houses?

George Osborne’s (conservative) changes stopping landlords from offsetting finance costs against rents weren’t a good idea, but they didn’t really bite hard until interest rates went up and they then became inflationary. Labour’s Renters Rights Act is also inflationary but in just the same way George Osborne’s changes took a while to bite, some of the damage from labour’s Renters Rights Act is only going to really hit hard if labour go ahead with their proposed landlord database on top of rumoured changes to capital gains tax.