What went right this week: power to England’s renters, plus more

On Friday, 1 May, the Renters’ Rights Act will take effect in England. The long-awaited law, which is the first set of significant reforms to rental housing legislation since 1988, includes several changes that will affect renters and landlords alike. 

One of the most significant is the abolition of ‘Section 21’ or no-fault evictions. Previously, landlords could evict tenants without a specific reason, which some campaigning groups say is a leading cause of homelessness. Now, landlords will only be able to evict if they plan to sell or move into a property. Notice periods will also increase from two months to four. 

Another major change is around tenancies, which will revert to rolling contracts as opposed to being fixed for 12 or 24 months. The ability for tenants to challenge rent hikes will also be introduced. Additionally, Awaab’s Law, which already requires social landlords to respond to emergency hazards and serious damp and mould within fixed timeframes, will also be extended next year to cover a wider range of health and safety risks. It’s named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mold.

Groups such as homelessness charities and unions welcomed the legislation. Acorn, a renters and community union, said that the act will affect around 12 million renters across the country and is the biggest change in a generation. Chelsea Phillips, Acorn national chair, said: “We won this. This wasn’t just handed to us from above. It came from more than 10 years of tenants organising, taking action, and refusing to accept a system that wasn’t working for us.”

Critics, however, say that the new law could force landlords with smaller operations out, while favouring larger corporate landlords. Some landlords fear that it will give them reduced powers to remove genuinely problematic tenants, while others argue that rent prices could edge upwards if the volume of properties on the market decreases.

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