Peers reject amendments to Renters’ Rights Bill as Royal Assent looms

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Willis at 20/10/2025 – 20:08
This is just the truth. Two decades ago I used to take benefits tenants as long as they paid me directly. Now my understanding is that because the House of Lords clarified the legal position, even if a tenant who is in receipt of housing benefit pays me directly, the council or housing benefits people can still come after me as the landlord to get the money back if for some reason the tenant is fraudulently claiming benefits.

When I did take benefits tenants they were all moonlighting but I never found that out until after they’d left and the correspondence turned up on the doormat, or I found evidence when I inspected the property after they’d left. I didn’t feel like passing judgement on that as the benefits tenants I took were single mums and as far as I could see they were just trying to make ends meet. The single mums WITH ONE CHILD were my best tenants. Single mums with addiction problems and multiple children from different partners are a different proposition entirely.

As a landlord you have almost no rights at all to delve into your tenants’ lives. You are entitled, with some limitations, to carry out a landlord’s inspection after giving 24 hours notice but you’ve got no ‘powers’ as such to check whether they are still entitled to benefits.

In theory if housing benefits tenants was your business model you might be able to set up some kind of system to check in regularly to see if the tenants’ circumstances have changed. But that system would have an additional cost. And also, what do you do if the tenant doesn’t respond? Anybody with experience of tenants with addiction problems, e.g. alcohol, will know that if you try and contact them by phone or email they often just don’t respond. And as a landlord you aren’t legally permitted to badger them, knock on their door and find out what they are doing, or otherwise intrude upon their lives. You are supposed to leave them to ‘quietly enjoy’ your property.

What the Renters Rights Bill was originally supposed to be was a Renters Reform Bill, with reciprocal rights for both tenant and landlords. That kind of system only works if the courts also work and you can get rid of a tenant that doesn’t pay you, or indulges in antisocial behaviour….addiction, threatening the neighbours etc. Social services, the police and every other institution that has the powers that you don’t have as a landlord also have to play their part.

Many landlords used to take benefits tenants 20 years ago, just as I did as long as they paid us directly. But for most landlords the reality is that benefits tenants are now just too high risk and the reason that’s the case is the law, not the fault of any landlord. The effect of the Renters Rights Bill if it goes ahead in its present form is that a much wider pool of people will be impossible to house in the PRS as too high risk. For example, in some cases it will be less risky to house asylum seekers and economic migrants. This is a very, very unhealthy position for the country to be in.

The Renters Rights Bill will have a lot of unintended consequences. It’s dreamed up by people who live in a gilded ivory tower and don’t listen to what happens in the real world.

I agree, from what I’ve read, the risk is just increased for landlords. Risk comes at a premium and rents would rise as yields need to go higher, or the risk is insured which is another added cost.

Working in IT the first thing I would do is register all landlords and tenants (I know it’s unpopular), just to get visibility. But when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail and this might not be the right way.

Overtime I would extend it, so you can see a tenant, their past history, and the same with the a landlord, how many properties, previous tenants at current property, check-in/out reports. Effectively it would automate the referencing side. The type of tenancy can be agreed in advance, to allow for student academic terms, intentional student prepayment, pets insurance etc. The deposit should be a bond, so it can be used across two properties when moving and topped up if a successful claim is made against the tenants previous tenancy. The system would show the tenancy details (most of which is standard, but landlord can add extras like some do), the rent amount, payment history, current balance etc. Any housing benefits paid directly to the rental account. All relevant docs would be online, so it’s not possible to fail to serve paperwork. Both landlord and tenant would have options on it to provide notice under whatever relevant grounds exist, be that, s13, s21, s8, notice to quit. You can’t then get the dates wrong. Home office could also automate the right to rent checks and end tenancy if required. And with it all automated, it would relieve the strain on the court system. From what I hear the biggest bug bear is long court backlogs.

Sometimes though, it systems are too much, and you end up with the “computer says no” and you don’t have the flexibility around it.

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Willis at 21/10/2025 – 11:52
Jonathan
Even if your ideas would speed matters up, that is not the point of the Renters Rights Bill or any of the legislation relating to residential tenancies over the past decade.

There is a shortage of property to rent. Councils are cash-strapped and cannot meet the demand from impecunious tenants. There is a kind of musical chairs with residential property where the intention is to get tenants into accommodation and keep them in it for as long as possible whether or not they pay the rent. That puts off the evil day when tenants have to move out because they cannot afford a property.

A complex system where landlords get dates wrong ensures that more non-paying tenants can avoid eviction on a technicality.

A system that enabled landlords more easily to filter out undesirable tenants is the last thing this Government wants. A system to speed up the court process for evictions will mean tenants throwing themselves upon the State for assistance sooner. The PRS is being forced to take on extra risk. In turn this means that landlords increase rents to cover that extra risk and the extra costs imposed upon them. Good tenants have to subsidise bad ones.

No other business owner than a landlord is required (under severe penalties) to continue to extend thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds of credit to a defaulting party. No other businessman is penalised harshly and disproportionately for trivial errors that bear little or no relation to any loss suffered.

People need to understand this is not a flaw. It is a feature and is wholly welcomed by the drafters of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 and the Renters Rights Bill.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 21/10/2025 – 12:13
“No other businessman is penalised harshly and disproportionately for trivial errors that bear little or no relation to any loss suffered.”

Yet these fines, almost all of which are circa £80,000 are described as “Proportionate”. And no, the figure is not a typo a £40,000 fine means a higher rate taxpayer will have to earn nearly £80,000 to cover the cost, plus of course rent repayment orders and court costs in addition.

My guess is that one such fine would wipe out most small landlords.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 21/10/2025 – 12:13
“People need to understand this is not a flaw”

That is yet another interesting take. That the system is designed to be complex, to make it worse so no one wins but the LA.

There is certainly a shortage, and no safety net as social housing barely exists. I see people on reddit, time and time again, getting evicted and told by the LA to sit tight and do nothing until bailiffs arrive. The LA fail to mention about the risk of a CCJ if possession with costs occurs and they cannot pay it, and that if it goes down s8 rent arrears the risk of them been seen as intentionally homeless, so no help is offered. Even emergency accommodation is under strain from capacity.

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Willis at 21/10/2025 – 13:11
Many landlords already have horror stories of spending a year to get rid of a problem tenant. And yes, there are plenty of reports of tenants who get told by the LA to sit tight and do nothing until the bailiffs arrive.

And so as the Renters Rights Bill increases the risk, many landlords are just not going to take the higher risk tenants in the first place because the risks are escalating. It is already a better option for some landlords to rent to companies housing asylum seekers than it is to house people who were born here and ended up marginalised. Introducing the Renters Rights Bill into this environment in its present form would be an extraordinarily stupid thing to do. It is the mark of a bunch of people who are either deceitful, living in an ivory tower, or both.

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Willis at 21/10/2025 – 13:11
“That the system is designed to be complex, to make it worse so no one wins but the LA.”

No, the “winners” are bad tenants who don’t care about their credit record.

One minor upside of the abolition of s21 is that more landlords will obtain judgement debts against defaulting tenants. This will improve referencing and rent arrears will be more obvious to prospective landlords. It is not much comfort but it will help landlords avoid the liars who hide their past misdeeds.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 21/10/2025 – 14:07
And the losers from the Renters Reform Bill are actually going to be the good tenants.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 21/10/2025 – 14:16
Oops…sorry…Renter RIGHTS bill.

I keep forgetting that the RRB was originally supposed to be something reasonable with reciprocal responsibilities before it was hijacked and turned into something else.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 21/10/2025 – 14:07
This is why I always get a money judgment for £300 (£35 court fee) before issuing a Section 21 or Section 8 notice, just to make sure that the defaulting tenant will be caught in the referencing trap.