Renters’ Rights Act will push up rents as regulation tightens

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 05/11/2025 – 15:02
Again I don’t disagree, and the tenants I often took a chance on in the period 1990 to 2015 when Osborne started the war on landlords would be very unlikely to get anything in the PRS now for the exact reason you have said – the risk is not worth the reward.

That said the PRS will continue without anyone of us as individuals. The specific point I made – new grounds under S8 are intended to be there for the purpose stated. If a landlord wants to sell and the S8 is correctly served I will be watching with interest to see how that is dealt with (personally not really affected as the last property has great tenants of 20+ years who won’t be replaced if they go) . Nobody can have any hard evidence that possession isn’t being granted under the new grounds as they are not actually implemented yet. If there are judges refusing valid S8s on tenants various predicaments it is totally against the spirit of the new grounds and will hit the headlines.

I am just as much against removal of S21as the next LL for the reasons landlords understand but most tenants and tenant organisations don’t – but now we have the RRA set in stone I’m interested in the specifics – because I will be amongst the first to criticise any negative impacts that are evidenced once the implementation has occurred.

Reply to the comment left by moneymanager at 05/11/2025 – 15:42
I think that this government has been generally dishonest about the real effect of its policies so to me ‘actual mendacity’ as you put it seems to go with the territory in 2025. This government isn’t honest about the effect of its policies, it doesn’t learn from or acknowledge its mistakes. There’s always someone else to blame…Reform, Brexit, the invasion of Ukraine. And this week we’ve heard Rachel Reeves softening the country up for tax rises with talk of “…labour priorities”.

The trouble with a government that doesn’t learn from its mistakes (or the mistakes of previous labour chancellors like Gordon Brown or Denis Healey) is that it repeats them. Labour came to power and immediately turned the tap off which means that the Magic Money Tree it doesn’t really understand because so many labour MPs have never had a real job is starting to wither. But that doesn’t matter in the labour ivory-tower because in fairy land you can fix that with the ‘labour priorities’ magic wand.

The real effect of the evil fairy waving the ‘labour priorities’ wand is a quidditch crash….the same outcome as Denis Healey and Gordon Brown…an attack on people on middle incomes.

And the effect of the Renters Rights Act will be loss of social cohesion, rises in rents, and people without a roof over their heads.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 05/11/2025 – 16:09
This ACT is so bad (NRLA won’t call it out) and full of unintended consequences. As I predicted Labour will crash the PRS economy over the next few years of their rein.

They are stuck with their ideology and regulate, regulate, regulate to control the PRS market that it chokes.

These next 3.5 years are going to go very painfully slow with this lot in power plus we have the draconian council ‘big brother’ extended powers to stick their noses into LLs properties.

Its not the Renters Rights Act that really bothers me , its the upcoming EPC requirements and the cap on spending per property (which is mooted to be £15k) – that will be the nail in the coffin

Reply to the comment left by GlanACC at 06/11/2025 – 07:41
If that goes ahead then of course that will put rents up as well. There would be less impact if non-incorporated landlords were able to offset their finance costs against rents again and if labour introduced capital allowances to enable the necessary EPC upgrades. For some properties of course it just won’t be worth upgrading.

But the overall effect if the government implement this will be (1) fewer properties available for rent and/or (2) higher rents.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 05/11/2025 – 16:09
One might be excused for thinking that they want to instill societal breakdown, civil unrest, to the point of actual revolution, the perfect ‘false flag’ excuse for even more draconian measures, it’s been done before.

Reply to the comment left by moneymanager at 06/11/2025 – 13:37
Labour governments don’t need to be competent do they? Aren’t they serving a “higher purpose”?

It would be very surprising indeed if somebody in the civil service didn’t point out to this labour government that whilst the unions would be happy (at first) with the economic changes they’ve made in their first budget, it would have a devastating impact on small business, the engine of the economy.

And what this government will probably have said in private will have been something along the lines of “it doesn’t matter…that’s just what we are telling people in public. What we are actually going to do is plant these Keynesian Beans and grow a labour Magic Beanstalk.”

But they turned the tap off and chopped that Magic Beanstalk off even before it had time to reach the glass ceiling.