The King's Speech occurred on 17 July. This is a crucial step in the legislative calendar as the government sets out its planned legislative programme for the Parliamentary year. Obviously, with a new government those plans assume a far greater level of import. There is also a detailed briefing document which goes with the Speech and has a page or two on every proposed bill. It is a particularly voluminous document this time due to the huge number of Bills that are being proposed across a vast range of areas.

On page 69 of the briefing there are details of a new Renter's Rights Bill. There is a small change in title from the previous Renters (Reform) Bill. However, I am pleased to see that the apostrophe police have been in and put in the correct apostrophe in Renter’s!

The briefing document makes pretty clear that what is going to be done is one of the two scenarios I have previously sketched out in a couple of talks. That is to bring back the old Renters (Reform) Bill with a new name but with a lot of the elements intact and probably re-using the same wording and then to edit it a bit to take out parts the Labour government do not like and to add in some new elements.

The briefing document mentions the following elements to a new Bill:

1. Abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault evictions’

This is clearly unchanged from the previous Reform Bill and I assume will also include getting rid of fixed term tenancies and ASTs. All of the same problems will arise as before. I note that the briefing also states that there will be suitable additional grounds for possession to protect landlord’s ability to reclaim property when needed. However, I do not expect there to be a ground for repeated rent arrears which was in the previous Bill and I worry about whether a student possession ground will exist. I would also anticipate some longer notice periods for some grounds, especially a ground for possession to allow for sale.

2. Enabling tenants to challenge rent increases designed to force them out by the backdoor

I am not sure that this is really new. This has been suggested as some form of rent control but I anticipate that this is another way of expressing a provision that was in the previous Reform Bill which required that landlords always had to put rent increases on a s13 notice and allowed tenants to challenge them in the First-Tier Tribunal as being above market level. As before this will slow down rent increases a bit but I suspect will do little to reduce rents over the longer-term.

3. Introducing new laws to end the practice of rental bidding wars by landlords and letting agents

This is entirely new. It appears to be a copy of legislation emanating from New Zealand which I wrote about previously.

4. Giving tenants the right to request a pet

This appears unchanged as from the previous Bill. Unless there is change in the Bill it would not stop landlords from marketing a property as “no pets” or refusing to rent to people with pets, but would make it hard to refuse a pet request from a tenant once they were in the property.

5. Applying a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector

This was in the previous Reform Bill. It is unlikely to affect most decent landlords but until the full proposals are published it is hard to say what it will mean. The previous Reform Bill had all of this left to regulations at a later date and I doubt that will change under the new government.

6. Applying ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the private rented sector

This is also new and will potentially require landlords to investigate and deal with condition complaints within set deadlines. I have written more on this elsewhere as it was well flagged in the Labour election manifesto

7. Creating a digital private rented sector database

This seems to be the same proposal as in the previous Reform Bill and is likely to be welcomed by much of the sector as long as it is efficient and does not add a lot of cost.

8. A new ombudsman service for the private rented sector

Again this is not unexpected and was already in the previous Reform Bill. Again the main concerns will be adding cost to the process and creating extra administrative costs and burdens for agents and larger landlords.

9. making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits or with children

Again this had been placed in the previous Reform Bill and was one of the provisions that also extended to Wales.

10. Strengthening local councils’ enforcement powers

A lot of this was in the previous Reform Bill as well. There were increased investigation powers for local authorities which were pretty draconian. There were also a range of new civil penalties and Rent Repayment Orders and longer periods to seek these. I suspect there will be a widening of RROs beyond that in the previous Reform Bill as well as increases in civil penalty amounts which was suggested by the previous government in the Fairer Renting White Paper but which did not actually appear in the Bill.

As I have set out above, most of the items put forward were in the original Reform Bill. This is why which is why I believe that a lot of the original text will be brought back with changes. While there are new elements these were actually mainly things that the Labour government sought to have inserted in the previous Reform Bill while in opposition, so they are largely drafted already. The other big change is likely to be the speed of movement. I would anticipate the government seeking to have this Bill finished by the end of the calendar year with parts of it coming into effect in early 2025. I do not expect that there will be any waiting for court reform before removing s21 as the Conservative government was persuaded to do. That does not mean that I do not think that there will not be court reform, I expect there will be. But I do not anticipate that there will be delays to allow for it to take effect.