The Renters’ Rights Act is out of the oven, but the student housing market is still cooked

But now, after fourteen months of deliberation and a few months of ping-pong, Labour’s version of the Renters’ Rights Bill has received Royal Assent.

Ministers are celebrating what Housing Secretary Steve Reed calls “the biggest leap forward in renters’ rights in a generation.”

Students waiting for safe, suitable, affordable or nearby housing may need to hold off on the champagne.

The fundamental messes at the heart of the approach to student housing remain unresolved – and the compromises that survived parliamentary process risk making an already difficult situation considerably worse.

It’s been quite the journey. Back in May 2024, Michael Gove unveiled draft legislation to reform the private rented sector – a Renters (Reform) Bill that died in the drech of the late Tory years.

Labour’s version, introduced in September 2024, was almost identical. With a substantial majority in the Commons, it sailed through (at least initially) relatively quickly by parliamentary standards.

The Bill’s big pitch was abolishing Section 21 “no fault” evictions, banning fixed-term tenancies in favour of periodic ones, and giving tenants the right to exit with two months’ notice. All very progressive, and all very focused on security of tenure.

Unless you’re a student – in which case the Bill carves out a special exemption.

Purpose-built student accommodation remains outside the new rules entirely – keeping fixed terms and allowing providers to demand more than a month’s rent upfront.

For students renting in the off-street market, landlords now get Ground 4A – a mandatory possession ground allowing them to evict students between June and September to ensure supply for the next academic year.

It’s all been a bit of a mess – students weren’t considered originally, and then occasionally considered through amendments, which in some cases has led to a multi-car pile-up of unintended consequences.

According to sector estimates, approximately one-third of the student private rental market consists of one and two-bedroom properties. That’s postgraduate students, mature students, international students, and plenty of second and third-year undergraduates who don’t want to live in a six-bed house share.

Supply issues

One mess runs like this. Ground 4A can’t be used by landlords of properties like this, and can’t offer fixed-term tenancies. Students can give two months’ notice at any time. If a student decides to leave in May the landlord loses money, but if the student leaves in November, the landlord can’t evict them to re-let for September – they’re stuck in the annual cycle with no mechanism to align the tenancy with the academic year.

The obvious response will be to stop letting to students and switch to the standard private rental market where at least the letting patterns are more predictable.

Baroness Scott of Bybrook, the Conservative shadow minister, put it plainly when she moved an amendment to extend Ground 4A to all student properties:

Extending this ground would maintain essential stability in the market, ensuring that students arriving each autumn are not left without somewhere to live. Without it, landlords may be unable to gain possession in time for the new academic year, reducing availability, pushing up rents and increasing uncertainty.

In the Lords’ first Report Stage on 1 July, peers voted by 221 to 196 to accept the amendment. But when the Commons considered the Lords amendments, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook made clear what the government thought.

We have thought very carefully about the design of ground 4A. Limiting it to HMOs captures the bulk of typical students – that is, groups living in a house share. Meanwhile, students who need more security of tenure, such as single parents living with their children, postgraduate couples living together who have put down roots in an area, or families containing students, will be protected.

Another fine mess

The Act bans landlords from charging more than one month’s rent in advance – designed to help tenants who can’t afford large upfront payments. For most renters, that’s genuinely helpful. For international students, it’s a nightmare.

Right now, many international students without UK-based guarantors secure accommodation by paying six or twelve months’ rent upfront. The Tenants Fees Act already limits deposits, so upfront rent has been the workaround that gets international students housed and gives landlords the security they want.

The Act removes that option entirely. So landlords who used to accept upfront rent from international students will now demand professional guarantor insurance services instead.

Technically, they can’t require a particular service – but a glance around the web suggests that tenancy agencies (presumably on commission) are heavily promoting services at the expensive end. Will students know they have a legal right to shop around?

And I’m off

Meanwhile in off-street housing, students (as other tenants) will be able to give two months’ notice at any time. So if a second-year student decides in February they want to leave, they give notice and they’re gone by April – landlords will lose what they’ve come to regard as their right, 12 months’ rent.

Their response will be to shift tenancy start dates to June. That way, if students bail in April or May, the property’s back earning by June. For students, that may mean paying rent for June, July, and August when they’re not actually living there, and could see those on long course loans evicted early at the start of the summer.

And when it comes to mould, while better protections now apply in social housing, the new Decent Homes Standard criterion E – that would create a standing duty that homes must be free from damp and mould – will be in place “by 2035 or 2037” (not a typo). Awaab’s law in social housing sets repair timescales once a serious hazard is reported – ministers say it will be extended to the PRS, but via separate regulations after consultation. And no sign of action in halls at all.

The UK student housing market is already in crisis. Multiple reports estimate an unmet demand of around hundreds of thousands of bedspaces nationally. Purpose-built student accommodation delivered only 9,000 new beds last year against a historic average of 30,000. HMO supply is said to have shrunk by ten per cent from its 2018/19 peak – a loss of nearly 49,000 dwellings.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed has told the BBC he will “soon” publish a timetable for implementation, giving landlords time to adjust. The actual commencement date for the new tenancy system is expected somewhere between April and June 2026, though ministers have been tight-lipped about specifics.

What they haven’t published is any assessment of how many landlords will stop letting to students, what the impacts on students will be, and how they might be mitigated. It’s a cross your fingers, wait and see sort of vibe when what’s needed is some proper monitoring. Ye gods.