After running out of time before the end of the last Parliament, the new government has announced that it is introducing the The Renters’ Rights Bill to Parliament today. The announcement says that the aim of the bill will be “to level the playing field between tenants and landlords” and will include the abolition of Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions for new and existing tenancies. That follows a consultation by the previous Conservative government. Our Mark Sanders, who advises Defra on the agricultural tenanted sector as the nominated RICS member of the Farm Tenancy Forum was invited by what was then the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (now the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) to make submissions to the consultation with particular reference to the needs of the rural estate and agricultural sectors. Those needs were recognised in the consultation response which said:
” In some sectors, regaining possession is vital to offering support services or ensuring businesses continue to be viable. We will provide new, specialist possession grounds to support providers of temporary and supported accommodation. We will support agricultural businesses to offer housing to employees when needed and maintain vital supply of rural homes.”
It also stated that:
“Employee accommodation plays a critical role for many employers, including some running agricultural businesses. We will strengthen the existing employment ground, which permits eviction if the tenancy was granted as a consequence of the tenant’s employment by the landlord and that employment has ceased, by making it mandatory.”
The new mandatory grounds for possession were set out at Annex A of the consultation response. There remain concerns about whether the court and/or tribunal system will have capacity to deal with the volume of applications for possession that will be received. The previous government considered that issue in a separate consultation and concluded that a specialist housing court was not required but that it would build capacity within the existing system and strengthen mediation services so that fewer cases result in court action
It is highly unusual for changes in the law to apply retrospectively, but, in this case, the reforms will apply to both new and existing tenancies. The previous government’s approach to this issue was to provide for a period of 6 months from the grant of Royal Assent before the changes would apply to new tenancies and a further period of at least 12 months before they would be applied to pre-existing tenancies.
As at the date of posting this article, the current version of the Bill has not yet been published on the Parliament website but we will be looking out for it to see if it follows the previous government’s proposals.
