Government vows Renters’ Rights Act will tackle rental discrimination

Reply to the comment left by Michele Dobson at 03/08/2026 – 08:36
Been through the same; £20k cost and destroyed my commitment to BTL.

‘Best practice’ for landlords is to give tenancies to those who offer the best proposition to the landlord.

The RRA has made it incredibly difficult for marginal tenants. The LHA is way too low in most parts of the country to come anywhere close to even the cheapest available properties. As landlords we know many UC recipients will need to fund the shortfall from money that is supposed to be for food or heating. As human beings we don’t want to see our tenants suffer, therefore it is better for our mental health if people in that situation don’t become our tenants in the first place. Some of them will strike lucky and get Social Housing with ludicrously cheap rent if they wait long enough. It needs to be recognised landlords didn’t stuff up a functional system that had worked well for decades for the majority of tenants. Especially the marginal ones. We are merely trying to navigate our way through a load of complications imposed by the government. The consequences of getting it wrong are now too serious for us to take a chance on someone who doesn’t tick all the boxes. They may be perfect tenants but we will never know because we can’t risk giving them a go. I currently have several long-term tenants who didn’t clear referencing when they first came to me and probably still wouldn’t today. They’ve been either good or excellent tenants for many years. I gave them a chance because Section 21 existed if it went wrong. I wouldn’t take that risk with new tenants today.

The children thing can have over crowding implications. I’ve certainly come scarily close to being caught out on that one. An international care worker wanting to rent a 2 bedroom flat for herself and her daughter. During the viewing we were chatting about random stuff and she suddenly said her husband and other 2 children would be joining her as soon as she got a tenancy. Five people in a 2 bed is overcrowding. A lot of families are completely unaware of the bedroom entitlement children have in rental properties.

Reply to the comment left by Jo Westlake at 03/08/2026 – 10:27
Private landlords are not being paid by the Council to offer social care to tenants.But fear not Andy Pandy and Angela are going to build millions of council houses to take those on UC or those unable to afford to rent privately.

Reply to the comment left by Michele Dobson at 03/08/2026 – 08:36
Whilst not wanting to evict any of my nice long standing tenants, I have decided that as and when any of my properties become vacant I will sell them.

I had numerous tenants on benefits in the period 1990 to relatively recently. My remaining property will be let to no one when the current tenants leave.

Obviously no overt discrimination there. But the property has never appealed (since I bought it in 1990) to those other than people solely on benefits or on basic wages with top up from benefits.

That was the market I started out in and it worked well with me taking a chance on many tenants with less than perfect histories – the key being the back stop of S21 if needed.

Pennycook seems unable to realise that this basic tier of properties will disappear from the rental market following RRA and as they never attracted many tenants who didn’t rely on benefits that is the ultimate in discrimination engineered by the long list of politicians starting with Osborne who have operated all stick and no carrot policies.

The only tenants who will be better off post RRA will be those with something to lose if they get a CCJ etc. What Pennycook and his ilk don’t realise is many benefits tenants had poor credit histories and sundry debts and but it still worked for landlords when the payments were direct to landlords. The risk would be off the scale to take some of the tenants today that I took in previous decades (the houses would be empty for a long time waiting for perfect tenants).

The new government needs to significantly step up council house building just to take on the additional tenants displaced from the PRS by a decade of unfavourable tax policy, followed by the RRA.

That Pennycook thinks some laws about what you can put in an advert and has solved something when in fact the bigger picture is diminishing choice at the lower end of the PRS as a result of the myriad changes is laughable and so typical of the process driven mindset that was part of Starmer’s downfall.

I think the government needs to build more SOCIAL housing but as to building more council housing, I’m not convinced that giving more money to councils is the most efficient way to ensure the provision of more social housing.

On Matthew Pennycook’s proposal that any applicant for a property might have to give reasons why the application was unsuccessful, all that this would do is further increase the costs and risks of screening tenants, which are already far higher as a consequence of the Labour Renters Rights Act.

I think that the other thing to bear in mind along with the additional credit referencing checks including last couple of years of tax returns/SA302 for all tenants etc. is only advertise a property if you need to advertise it and don’t include a price on the advert if it is only a sign on the property saying that it is to be let subject to referencing. If you’re getting 20-50 applicants for every property you advertise and somebody says that you have to write to them all saying why they were unsuccessful, then don’t advertise if you don’t need to. That advertisement is an additional cost in itself, there is an additional cost if it involves writing to tenants, and an additional risk of somebody taking you to a tribunal using the contents of the letter.

It may be better and less risky just to use an agent to screen the tenants.

But if the advertisement is only a single notice on a property saying that it is to be let then that notice does not have to include a price: It could just be a notice saying to be let subject to referencing, contact [named agent number or website] but including no price for the property.

Does Pennycook read these posts from Landlords? Does his team read Property118 (and other blogs like them)? I get the impression he has Nelson’s eye trouble (telescope at his blind eye) ” I see no ships (problems)” and only listens to briefings by tenant groups/activists. Do you agree?

Reply to the comment left by Peter G at 03/08/2026 – 14:03
The Labour Renters Rights Act does make it illegal to discriminate against tenants on benefits or those who have children (it also means you cannot unreasonably refuse a pet although in my experience tenants with lots of children do far more damage and cost more than those with a pet).

So what this means is that screening procedures must be applied to ALL tenants.

If you ask for a character reference, references from a previous landlord, last two years of tax returns showing evidence of all other income or SA302 if self-employed, evidence of current address and savings via a recent UK financial institution such as a bank or building society, two forms of photo ID e.g. driving licence and passport, plus evidence of entitlement to benefits if benefits form part of income (to include child tax credit and working families tax credit), then you aren’t going to have much of a problem with benefit tenants are you?

And if your advertising in whatever form it may be, or your screening procedures are the same for all tenants then you are not discriminating.

You might also want to include a statement “All applicants may be subject to credit referencing and a CRB check” then this also is not discriminating because you are saying that this may be applied to ALL applicants.

Then even if Mr. Pennycook does get his way that you have to increase the costs of screening for all tenants again, at least you won’t have to waste money writing to applicants who have no hope: If you do get applications from people who clearly have no hope in the private rented sector then you will also know that these applicants are people who are only fishing for enough information to be able to take you to a tribunal.

Or maybe you could use an agent to do all this and just check that your agent is doing all of the above.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 03/08/2026 – 13:39
You must include the price on any advertisement or face a spell at His Majesties Pleasure

Reply to the comment left by The_Maluka at 03/08/2026 – 14:19
Yes, although that is NOT the case if it is a notice on a property saying that the property is to be let. So if the notice on the property just has a sign to [be] let subject to referencing together with the agent’s details then it doesn’t have to include a price.

An agent is probably going to have lots of tenants already on their books looking for properties and they will have screened them.

That’s why the Labour Renters Rights Act is a gift for agents….although it does nothing significant to benefit tenants and it drives rents up.

In addition to all the details above including last two years of tax returns it would be an advantage to have a current mobile phone contract showing a permanent address and to ensure that the agent has an obligation to share these details with you. That way, if you need these details to apply for a Money Claim Order you would have the details for the Money Claim Order website.