The Renters (Reform) Bill did not make it through Friday’s parliamentary ‘wash-up’ and has effectively been shelved.
The Bill was first introduced to the House of Commons in May last year, with the aim of making the rental market fairer but its progress through parliament was slow. With parliament dissolving on Friday for the summer general election, the bill was shelved as they ran out of time.
Reflecting on the demise of the Bill, safeagent’s chief executive, Isobel Thomson, says:
“Now that we know that the Renters (Reform) Bill has been dropped, many aspects of which were positive, we have two choices. We can either lament what hasn’t happened or move on and recognise that day in, day out professional letting agents deliver for their tenants and landlords ensuring that renting is not as negative an experience as the doom-laden rhetoric of many critics would have us believe.
“We do not know definitively what a new Government will want to deliver for the sector or even how long it will take to introduce new measures. What we can do now is campaign for local authorities to take enforcement action against the minority of agents and landlords who fail to comply with the law.”