10^th Aug 2018

Consumer body Which? has just issued has issued a five point demand calling for a drastic rental sector reform. It claims that at the moment it is letting both tenants and landlords down on at least five key issues and their demands will solve them.

The five reform demands from Which? are:

1. All landlords must be registered with local authorities, with information logged on a publicly available database which is then linked to the existing register of rogue landlords and agents which was established earlier in April 2018.

2. A new independent regulator for lettings and management agents must be created, which must have a mandatory and legally binding code of practice and strong penalties for rogue landlords.

3. The government must also introduce reform to improve tenure security and review eviction procedures. This will reduce unnecessary delays for landlords when a repossession is necessary.

4. A thorough review of tenancy agreements used by letting agents which will ‘establish how widespread use of unfair, inaccurate or misleading terms and conditions is – and if further action, for example an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, is required’.

5. The government should provide consumers with ‘an effective and accountable alternative dispute resolution scheme’ and review the current deposit adjudication schemes.

In its accompanying statement Which? described the private rental sector as ‘plagued by issues of sub-standard accommodation, insecurity and ineffective redress provisions.’

Which? has tracked the experiences of more than 2,500 tenants as well as carrying out a survey of 898 private landlords.

Which? said: "The report found evidence of wide-ranging issues from substandard property conditions to anxiety about insecure tenancies and a fear of reporting problems. This was combined with a lack of knowledge from tenants and landlords about rights and responsibilities, and a failure by some letting agents to provide necessary information. Startlingly, one in five millennial renters told us that they did not receive a written tenancy agreement when they moved into a property."

Which? is quite disparaging about agents when it said its findings "raise serious concerns about a lack of regulation … with reports of rogue operators pressuring house-hunters to pay holding deposits or sign contracts without the information needed to make informed decisions."


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