The Renters’ Rights Bill is a mess for students. Now the Lords need to fix it

It abolishes “no fault” evictions and bans fixed-term tenancies to increase tenant security – they’ll all be “rolling” in the future.

Tenants will be able to terminate tenancies with two months’ notice, but to accommodate the student market landlords will be able to evict students in the summer – a workaround that has its own problems.

Students will be pleased that upfront rent of more than a month will also be banned. The Bill also enforces the Decent Homes Standard, bans rental bidding wars and ensures anti-discrimination measures against benefit recipients and families with children – although (international) students lack equivalent protection.

But a range of problems remain.

A major last-minute change to the Bill was a government amendment specifying that Ground 4A – the one that allows landlords to evict students over the summer – wouldn’t be applicable if the tenancy period, starting from the day the tenancy was entered into and ending when the tenant was entitled to possession, is six months or less.

The practical implication is as follows. If your local student housing market tends to have houses where tenancies start September 1st, the 1st March will suddenly become a huge housing scramble day, resembling those scenes of people smashing windows to buy cheap TVs in early iterations of Black Friday.

Except there’s nothing cheap about student housing. It’s just scarce.

You do get the sense that the government hasn’t quite thought that measure through. And it’s worse if landlords switch their start dates earlier to, say, June 1st to ensure students can’t take advantage of the two-months-to-quit thing – that would result in a December 1st scramble. Universities and their SUs on the other hand will have to think that through.

NUS had been campaigning to abolish guarantors. Landlords may be less worried about those in the future – they’re only “guarantoring” two month’s rent now, after all – and the government has moved to absolve a guarantor from stumping up cash if a student dies. But overall, the government refused the ban – with Housing Minister Matthew Pennycock arguing:

I appreciate fully that obtaining a guarantor can be difficult for some prospective tenants, and I understand the reasoning behind my hon friend’s amendment. However, I am also mindful of the fact that in some instances, the use of guarantors can provide good landlords with the assurance necessary to let their properties to tenants who may otherwise find it difficult to access private rented accommodation… Having considered this issue in great detail, I ultimately conclude that limiting guarantors could inadvertently make life more difficult for certain types of renter.

The Lords could amend the Bill to require landlords to recognise international student visas as proof of affordability, given UKVI has tests in place for that very purpose. Universities could be persuaded to become guarantors too – as I say, in private housing it’s only “guarantoring” two month’s rent now, rather than a full contract’s worth.

More broadly, while the Bill prohibits discrimination against benefit recipients, it doesn’t protect students receiving maintenance loans – because their financial support comes from DfE, not the DWP. Different sort of poverty, see. The Lords could expand anti-discrimination measures to include both students in receipt of a maintenance loan and nationality.

Students often sign tenancy agreements months in advance but may need to change plans before the tenancy starts. The Bill as amended allows students to cancel with two months’ notice, but only after the tenancy begins – leaving them “trapped” in pre-tenancy periods. The Lords should amend the Bill to permit notice to quit during that pre-tenancy period.

The Bill limits rent increases to once a year and requires tribunal oversight, but student landlords will be able exploit a loophole by evicting student tenants over the summer and re-letting at higher rates. The Lords should amend the Bill by applying rent-increase limits to the property, not just the tenancy.

The Bill excludes Purpose-Built accommodation from almost all of the new protections, including eviction safeguards, rent increase limits, and access to the new Ombudsman. Although national codes exist, students in PBSA will have weaker rights compared to those in private houses.

Frankly, no student should be advised to rent in halls rather than off-street housing in the future given the disparity in rights – almost certainly not something the government was intending. The Lords should extend the Bill’s protections to PBSA by abolishing exemptions in the Housing Act 1988 and requiring these providers to comply with assured tenancy rules.

As I say, the Bill allows landlords to evict students during summer months (June–September) – but if landlords switch to June 1st starts for contracts to protect their summer rent from students leaving “early”, that may force students into paying for unused housing.

And students with a longer academic year (of the sort that gives them a bigger loan) or that are January starts could be evicted too early. The Lords should require student landlords to align landlord possession rights with the end of a student’s individual academic year or course – and stop assuming everyone is an undergrad that enrols in September.

Under the new rolling tenancies, anyone in a joint tenancy can end the agreement unilaterally on two months’ notice, potentially leaving others without housing. The Lords should introduce a mechanism similar to Scotland’s Housing Bill, allowing individual tenants to terminate their interest in a joint tenancy without affecting others. Or they could just ban joint tenancies and require landlords to issue individual agreements, reducing conflict and liability among tenants.

There are other problems too. As it stands, landlords can make unjustified deductions from deposits for claimed repairs or cleaning, often without spending the money on these purposes for the next tenant. The Lords could mandate landlords to provide itemised evidence for deductions, offer tenants the chance to remedy issues before the tenancy ends, and require proof that deducted amounts were spent on specific repairs.

Some landlords impose low energy caps in all-inclusive rents, penalising students for exceeding limits without incentives to improve property energy efficiency. The Lords could regulate all-inclusive rents by setting reasonable energy usage limits based on national averages and requiring transparency. Or they could ban all-inclusive rent agreements.

The new Ombudsman’s resolution times may be too slow for students, whose tenancies are short and time-sensitive. The Lords could introduce a fast-track mechanism for student complaints, prioritising cases involving health, safety, or eviction.

And given the lack of planning that universities undertake when recruiting students away from home, and the lack of data available to students, the Lords could amend the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to give OfS some information powers in this space, and mandate universities to take housing availability and affordability into account when offering a student a place.

The student housing market is distinct. It has its own problems and requires its own solutions. Had there have been a proper student housing strategy, or even a minister willing to accept responsibility for it as a policy area, the volume of fixes now required could be lower.

The distinctiveness is why the government is about to bring forward a dedicated strategy for armed forces accommodation, and has a taskforce for older people’s housing needs.

But we are where we are. Pending some more sensibly joined-up government between DfE and MHCLG, the Lords will now need to set to work to do what nobody else seems to have got around to doing yet.