Professor warns Renters’ Rights Act has backfired on tenants

How can we keep paying these people to just repeat what landlords have been saying ever since the act was proposed – this is not news or some form of discovery just an example of how out of touch the tax payer funded elite really are.

I’m not sure why you have to be a professor to be able to work this out…..it’s been on the cards for years

You don’t have to be a professor to work it out, but HE has credibility and landlords do not. Management Consultants make a business from telling managers what their staff have been telling them for years, but when you are paying someone £3K/day you tend to listen to their advice!

Landlords countrywide warned of the unintended consequences. Shelter, Generation Rent, Acorn et al achieved their objectives and now must live with the consequences. A tenant must now have a perfect credit record to achieve a tenancy, even a satisfied CCJ is sufficient to lose a tenancy.

We keep telling em this. Almost every change they’ve bought in since 2015 has made tenants worse off.

I’ll keep putting this on when people wonder why rents keep going up.

Keep spreading these words please.

WhyTenantsCan’tGetHouses

A background to why you tenants are paying extortionate rents and can’t get anywhere unless you earning a cracking wage-Blame the Govt and Councils you vote for because you like it when they give more regs & rules to the Landlord-Guess who pays for this? You do.

2015 George Osborne introduce Section 24, fully implemented by 2021, where your rent can be £1000, your mortgage £700 & you still lose money on the house due to the bizarre Tax rules introduced-Look it up, it’s that mad, 6 year old kids say That can’t be right. Too late when you’ve already bought the house in personal name.

They wanted Pet deposits banned.
Cause we’d want £100 more in case dog did damage.
End of tenancy, dog did no damage, tenant got all deposit back.
2019 you banned higher pet deposits cause some tenants didn’t like it when dog did damage & didn’t get their deposit back.
We stopped taking pets.
2024 MP stood up in Parliament and called for Pet deposits to be reinstated cause tenants with pets couldn’t get accommodation.
You couldn’t make this up.
Description here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u54ouYTdNr7WaCPYW18Q_tZdlJr8-VwSUJpE0IcPf5k/edit?usp=drivesdk

They don’t want Landlords helping tenants with Benefits and they bought in Universal Credit which has zero communication with Landlord- We now don’t take Benefit tenants.

They bought in Selective Licensing on good Landlords with good houses. We put the rents up to cover it and now don’t take risky tenants.

Landlord can get fined £30,000 if tenant takes battery out smoke alarm and Landlord CAN’T prove that tenant did it.

Landlord can get fined £30,000 if renting 1 bed flat to single person and he/she moves his/her partner in unbeknown to the Landlord if the Selective License only has license for one occupier.

They started fining Landlords £5000 if they didn’t check tenants passport properly on Right to Rent checks-Landlords stopped taking anyone that had the slightest chance of being illegal immigrant. Innocent UK citizens suffered.

2015, they bought in that if Landlord CANNOT PROVE he/she has gave tenant boiler certificate, you can never get your property back. Even if had a new boiler 5 years later, Judge says Not bothered, u not having your house back. This helped the current bad tenant, hurts the next 100,000 tenants waiting for a home. A purely Anti Landlord measure to stop Landlord getting rid bad tenant or having his house back.

Oct 2024 Unison now wants a rent freeze. Ooh are we a charity are we? What other individual who sells or provides something is told YOU CANNOT charge a price u wish?

Oct 2024 the Renter Rights Bill is going to make it law, u can’t do rent increase unless use Section 13. Now for years, I’ve agreed informally with tenant ‘Ok £25 a month, u still £200pm now below anyone else.’ Job done.
Now, I’m totally full up with paperwork and rules and regs. I have no more time. Section 13 some more say only a few mins. It’s still 30 mins by time printed, filled in, signed, scanned, sent. Each one when u have lots of houses on top of Selective Licensing INSISTING we inspect each house every 4 months (two weeks solid just on inspections every months) is taking me over the edge. My existing tenants are going to have to go with Letting Agent who charge £50 for a Section 13. That’s £4pm extra on the rent. Along with the extra £80pm Letting Agent fee which gets rid of cheap rent was charity.

Sep 2024 Ed Miliband MP wants all houses to EPC C which will cost Landlords £5000 and increase tenants cheap rents. As soon he announced this, he made more tenants homeless. Few words on that here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eI7z29SNRCDLLwX6_0QQChrwTxZ4jGZw4UNybVYfD1s/edit?usp=drivesdk

Section 24 Tax bought in by George Osborne of the Tories who said it will only affect 1 in 5 Landlords-That’s over 2 million tenants put at risk of homeless. Landlords with tenants of 25 years are now being made homeless on this one action alone.

Oct 2024 I’ve heard there’s a part of the RRB that says we must give tenants our home address on paperwork.
Details of that here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v7aETrvz0j6CdS7LZwYukthZAbhNxLWRKR8qShi6Gok/edit?usp=drivesdk

Aug 2025 RRB

Aug 2025 Making Tax digital

Aug 2025 RRB getting rid of Section 21 so u can’t get rid of bad tenant which would help a good tenant get the house.

Aug 2025 NI on rental income, another retrospective change after you’ve already housed the tenant and agreed to keep their rent lower than others.

Feb 2026 RRB making us register every property & pay-As well as Licensing-On houses many of us don’t want & only keeping for tenants anyway.

I’ll keep saying it to hope some common sense MP takes this up and actually wants to help tenants, and not getting votes hurting Landlords:

April 2026 Govt now fining us £7000 each tenant for every RRA act letter we cannot prove we’ve gave to the tenant-In ten years time. We get fined £7000 for an admin error for a letter the tenant can get off the internet just like we have to. This time Govt gone too far. We Housing Providers. Many of us don’t want the houses & only keeping for the tenant. And you want to fine us £7000 for an error where no one has got hurt?

£7000 for a paperwork error each tenant & even if you have gave em the sheets, if you lose your proof, you’ve had it. I can stab someone & get less. Parking ticket £60. No car insurance £200. Letter that tenants not bothered about £7000?

I tell me Landlord mates in the gym, they can’t believe it. I say It’s really easy, go on Google put £7000 fine Landlord in. They come back next day & say Wow cannot believe it, I would never have never known, that’s it, I’m selling.

I bike Sundays with 10-15 lads. Some have houses, I tell them, they flabbergasted, they had no idea.

I’ve got several expensive (for Nottingham) nice bungalows nice areas I was maybe never gonna’ sell. I’m even selling them now if/when the tenant should ever leave. Govt gone too far now. Renters group love it, but someone please tell em, they’ve now voted for something that’s made their houses more expensive & cut supply. My tenants understand fully what the Govt & Councils are doing to them, they’ve known for years I wish to sell but they now can’t get anywhere any more. All started since George Osborne Sec 24 2015, then Selective Licensing 2018, then UC, the list goes on.

April 2026 the ICO data fee we have to pay every year just so we can give the tenant the plumbers number when they have a leak gushing out.

May 2026, can only issue rent increase by Section 13 when previously could agree verbally with tenant and if rents are £1000, and tenant paying £775, they’d normally agree to £800 job done. Now Govt say must be done by Section 13, I’m getting older and the ever increasing paperwork is frying my brain. Letting agents charges £300 to do a section 13. That’s the rent increase gone on admin, so you have increase more than £25pm-Tenant loses again. Well done Govt.

Every anti Landlord measure they bring in to they think will help the tenant has hurt the tenants massively.

Every time the MP’s talk an anti landlord measure, they’ve made more homeless and increased rents.

There is loads more

A classic real life scenario I’m living right now. I have a lovely young couple, mid -20s, currently living with their respective parents, about to get married and set up their first home together. Both employed but income not great and they’ve built up little credit history, so are rated Medium & High Risk by Equifax. So I asked for a guarantor. One mother has said yes but is a company director showing a salary of £13k pa and her risk is Medium.

In the past they’d have paid up front – but I can’t ask that now.

I feel I have no choice but to reject their application, which is such a shame. They seem decent but you never know and I can’t risk an eviction taking 6-12 months. How will they ever get a decent home to rent in the PRS under current rules?

The RRA was only ever a smokescreen for the ill informed to feel as though they were being listened to and “helped”. Every element that helps one tenant has a downside to another, especially those that are already disadvantaged in the competition for properties.

I can only assume these bidding wars are taking place in London because I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I’ve never yet had a property produce a bidding war.

As my husband always says, ‘in business, if they push something in it’ll pop out somewhere else.’ In this case higher rents.

Pretty obvious that landlords won’t take high risk tenants without some kind of protection. Whether that’s foreign, self employed, UC, or retired tenants. The government has completely removed any kind of backstop for those on UC. Landlords are left twisting in the breeze if they decide they’re not paying, oh and frozen the rate. Try getting into private rented as someone on full UC these days – good luck.

Now the RRA has put the rest of my list in that same boat. I just had tenants up sticks and go back to India leaving me a fully furnished flat complete with almost all their personal possessions. I’ve managed to get them to send me an email confirming that they have given up the tenancy and we can dispose of their items, so it could be worse, but obviously I won’t get a penny for the time or expense it takes to get the flat ready to relet and of course they didn’t pay their final months rent.

Reply to the comment left by Kate Mellor at 09/09/2026 – 10:24
Kate,
‘…Mr Leunig writes in The Telegraph: “Landlords used to advertise flats at a low rent, find a lot of would-be renters, and then force them to bid for it….’
we are portfolio landlords in London for nearly 30 years and that has never been our experience. I think its fiction!
also 70% of our tenants have left this year. there is very little tenant demand from decent tenants. so we are lowering our asking rents on our voids, but just attracting rent 2 rent scammers despite being on all the portals.

This tin – eared government were never prepared to listen to landlords.

Some of my best tenants were from overseas who paid 6 months in advance and stayed for several years.

Not surprised they are now having difficulties finding property to rent.

This is such a classic case of “We told you so”.
Another unintended consequence of the RRA
4 months into the RRA and I have already had 3 lots of tenants caught out by the new 2-month notice period. “I would like my notice period to increase from 1 month to 2” said a tenant NEVER. What was the point of that? But of course, if they admit that the 2-month notice period does not work for anyone, they will have to reinstate fixed period tenancies.

Upshot for me: All 3 of my outgoing tenants left their last month’s rent unpaid, as well as their council tax. Their council tax is none of my business, but in 2 of the 3 cases the deposit does not cover the 1 month rent arrears plus cleaning up their mess. CCJs all round.