Rental reforms should mean hopeful tenants no longer have to “magic up eye-watering sums up front”, campaigners said but landlords have claimed proposals “risk making access to rented housing harder”.
The Renters’ Rights Bill is due back before the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Housing charity Shelter has welcomed an amendment to the proposed legislation to stop landlords demanding more than a month’s rent in advance from a new tenant.
But the charity called for the Government to go further, limiting the amount rent can rise by during a tenancy and removing “unnecessary demands for guarantors”.
The Government has previously said the Bill will end Section 21 so-called “no fault” evictions and give renters greater security and stability.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “For years, renters have been forced to magic up eye-watering sums up front or see their hopes for a home vanish.
“With benefit recipients nearly twice as likely to be blocked from renting by demands for rent up front, the Government is absolutely right to use the Renters’ Rights Bill to reign this discriminatory practice in.
“But paying to get a foot in the door isn’t the only cost renters contend with. We regularly hear from tenants who are forced to up sticks and move when their landlord hikes the rent to ridiculous levels – last year 900 renters a day moved because of a rent hike they couldn’t afford.
“To truly make renting more secure and affordable, the Bill must limit in-tenancy rent increases in line with either inflation or wage growth. It must also stamp out the other discriminatory practices, like unnecessary demands for guarantors, that drive homelessness by locking people out of private renting.”
However, a coalition of groups representing landlords, letting agents and providers has warned the ban on more than one month’s rent upfront could leave property owners open to risk if tenants have no other way of proving their ability to pay their rent on an ongoing basis.
The groups, including the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), British Property Federation and Propertymark, said: “We accept that Section 21 repossessions are ending, and support measures to ensure every rental property is of a decent quality.
“However, the Government’s proposed changes risk making access to rented housing harder for the very people we want to support.
“Limiting rent in advance, combined with frozen housing benefit rates and not enough rental housing will make it all but impossible for those with poor or no credit histories in the UK to prove their ability to sustain tenancies.
“This includes international students, workers from overseas and those employed on a short-term or variable basis with an income that fluctuates.
“Cutting off any assurance landlords might seek when renting to those who cannot easily prove their ability to afford a tenancy is neither practical nor responsible.
“Those who will suffer are those most likely to struggle to pass affordability checks.”
