The Nationwide Building Society’s charitable foundation slates the Renters Reform Bill as being too soft and needs to toughen up to really help tenants.

A statement from the Nationwide Foundation says: “It’s widely accepted that the affordability of private renting is a major concern, but the Bill does nothing to address this. It does limit rent rises to annually, but leaves the door open for landlords to use big rent rises as a way of evicting tenants.

“The government should prevent landlords from carrying out backdoor revenge eviction via unreasonable rent hikes. This should be done by limiting rent increases within tenancies to the lowest of either inflation or real median income growth averaged over the last three years.”

The foundation also goes on to say that the Bill does not deliver any form of greater, safety for renters, with the statement claiming: “We’d also like to see time limits for investigating and fixing damp and mould as part of the Renters Reform Bill, matching the new regulations brought in for social housing following the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale.”

The foundation accuses the government of failing in its duty of providing enough support on enforcement, this is in spite that it has already pledged to increase authorities funding to vastly improve the policing of private sector landlords.

The Nationwide Foundation states: “Whilst it’s a step in the right direction, the Bill in its current form misses out on the opportunity to ensure that all renters truly have the security they need in their homes. Again and again, the Nationwide Foundation’s funded projects tell us that regulation is meaningless without proper enforcement.

“… While improved powers for local authority enforcement are welcome, councils already struggle to enforce existing regulation. It’s vital that local authorities receive ring-fenced resources to be able to root out and penalise bad landlords. Getting this right is key to allowing renters to actually use the new rights they will be getting from the Bill. And when legislative changes are made, tenants will still need advice and support to know their rights and be confident to use them.”

Richard Merrick of PIMS, says: “This foundation is fighting against one of its lucrative client base in its ‘efforts’ to help tenants, what it fails to understand is that already, with the threat of the Renters Reform Bill and the scrapping of Section 21 evictions, the group they are attempting to ‘help’ will be in a far worse position of becoming homeless as landlords are selling up and leaving the sector.”