Government plans for compulsory three-year tenancy agreements
Tenants typically stay in their homes for nearly four years, according to government figures. However, 81% of tenancy agreements are assured shorthold tenancies with a minimum fixed term of six or twelve months.
Although tenants and landlords can agree to longer terms, most don’t do so. Housing Secretary James Brokenshire describes the current six month standard tenancy as being ‘deeply unfair when renters are forced to uproot their lives or find new schools for their children at short notice due to the terms of their rental contract.’ Government proposals suggest a default three year tenancy with a six month break clause, to give tenants more security.
In response, the National Landlords Association (NLA) says that the new proposals will be too ‘rigid’ and that it has been ‘misled’.
Richard Lambert, the NLA’s chief executive, says that when plans for a consultation on longer tenancies were announced last October, he believed the ‘tone of discussion’ was one of consultation. He now believes the new plans should be about making existing tenancy agreements more flexible rather than introducing a minimum three-year contract.
The deadline for consultation responses has since passed and a recent poll by Letting Agent Today suggested that over two thirds of its readers believed the government may have already made its mind up anyway.
This speculation has prompted the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) to warn the government not to announce any decision on longer term tenancies until all responses from the consultation process have been considered.
However, the RLA now says it has been told by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government that no such announcement has been planned and that all responses will be taken into account before decision is made.
No date has been set for the announcement.
