Together At Home
£9.74Labour has introduced a new bill that would ban “no-fault” evictions, providing England’s 11 million renters with greater security. The Conservatives had introduced a Renters’ Rights Bill, including a ban on no-fault evictions, but the plans were put on hold indefinitely before the entire bill was dropped when the election was called in July. The strengthened Labour proposals will also ban blanket bans on tenants with children or on benefits. Additionally, Awaab’s Law, that demands landlords fix issues like mould, will be extended into the private rented sector.
Multiple homelessness and renters’ rights charities welcomed the tougher legislation. Generation Rent chief executive Ben Twomey described it as “painfully overdue”, since it will give tenants “more confidence to challenge disrepair and poor treatment” by letting agents and landlords. Twomey said that the abolition of Section 21 eviction would allow for renters bolstering of their challenges. He also praised the doubling of notice periods and a proposed proposal to ban landlords from bidding evicted tenants against each other.
Shelter chief executive Polly Neate asserted that the government was right to ban no-fault evictions since those have “haunted England’s renters for years.” She called for further action, citing the 60,000 renters ejected from their homes by landlords in the past year due to raised rents. However, the National Residential Landlords Association urged for the bill to be fair to landlords as well as tenants; CEO Ben Beadle noted the need for preparation time for an overhaul to the sector considered the largest of its kind in about 30 years.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner pledged to rebalance the tenants’ rights with those of landlords, saying that renters had been let down for too long and that a small proportion of unscrupulous landlords were worsening the housing crisis and forcing tenants into bidding wars. She vowed for no more delay and dither
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