Renters' Rights Bill

We were invited to join Theresa Wallace, Chairman of The Lettings Industry Council today on a private Q&A for an update on the Renters' Rights Bill alongside David Smith, a solicitor specialising in property litigation, property regulation, and data protection.

David expressed his best guess that due to the Bill still pending Royal Assent, and the need for a required period of time before commencement, he feels the changes immediately impacting landlords will still be looking likely for the first quarter of next year.

Pleasingly the session was recorded and we hope to be able to share this with members at some point in the not too distant future, although the overall tone of the session was still very much a discussion around what is already known. He explained he met with various officers at Government and has a good idea of what is ahead, based on the situation that currently, nothing much has changed.

ELA members can attend a live webinar at 6:00 pm on Wednesday 29th October being hosted by ELA, inviting Theresa Wallace, Chairman of The Lettings Industry Council to provide an update on the RRB. This will be the second chance for ELA members to have live access online to Theresa, allowing them to ask questions following her presentation on the implications of the Renters' Rights Bill.

Because of the nature of the meeting today styled as a Q&A, the summary thereof is hard to convey in a Blog, so we hope to be able to share the recording as many common questions were answered around a variety of landlord concerns to do with rent payments, Section 8 notices and their grounds. Questions posed to David were those such as:

"for any landlord who wants to sell and move in to their property, is it 4 months notice at 8 months, or 4 months notice at 12 months?" David's response was "the notice must expire 12 months after the tenant first moved in, so its 4 months notice at 8 months, expiring at 12".

As mentioned, what is still uncertain is the exact date the changes will be required to be effective for landlords to comply and so it is hard to exactly share more at this current stage. We will however aim to bring you more on the Renters' Rights Bill with updates likely after the Conference which starts next week.

In the meantime continue to contact us at the office with any queries you are facing with your tenancies and the team will always be happy to help and support.