Housing White Paper, The Factors Which Affect The Rental Sector

With the highly anticipated release of the Housing White Paper, it is certain that we will see changes across the country within the housing market. The Housing White Paper has addressed and offered actions for a numerous amount of areas within the industry, including subjects such as homelessness, planning permission and letting fees.

Within the Housing White Paper there are several factors that are going to affect the rental market, and being an area of the industry we are heavily involved in we want to make you aware of the potential changes we might see shaping the future of the lettings industry.

1. Increased Safety Standards
We should see an increased focus on the safety standards in rented properties, this will be rolled out to ensure rented properties will be up to a desirable and safe living standard for the tenants. With this in place, there will also be the introduction of a Landlord and Agent blacklist aiming to eliminate rogue Landlords and Agents from operating and gives councils the ability to prosecute.

2. Electrical Safety Checks
It is being debated with ‘Industry Experts’ to consider whether electrical safety checks in rented properties should become mandatory. This ties in with the above to increase safety standards.

3. Longer Tenancies
With short tenancies causing disruption to families across the UK, it is not uncommon for children to be moving schools due to their tenancies ending and the parents not able to find another property in the catchment area for the original school. Shorter tenancies also cause uncertainty for working professionals and young couples. Which is why the government are looking to promote longer tenancies on new build rental homes.

4. Banning Letting Fees
A hot topic in the lettings industry, the ban on letting fees. Although not much information has been revealed in the Housing White Paper about when this action will take place they have commented on how they hope this will achieve improvements in the competition within the lettings industry along with giving renters greater clarity and control over what they pay. Unfortunately, there are no mentions of looking into alternatives which ARLA is still battling for consideration such as a cap on fees or having the cost spread over 6 months.