Vocal campaign group, Generation Rent, has issued a manifesto on reforms it believes are necessary in the private rental sector, but the Residential Landlords Association is not impressed. It says the group doesn’t present a balanced picture of the private rental sector and instead is
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making exaggerated claims about the various challenges faced by tenants.
Key Areas of Concern to Generation Rent
• Length of tenancies – Generation Rent is calling for longer tenancies, but the RLA says the average tenancy lasts 3.8 years and that making long-term tenancy agreements mandatory is a policy that is unlikely to stick.
• Rent – Generation Rent talks a lot about ‘soaring rents’, but the reality is that the average rent in the private sector has only increased by 1% in the last twelve months, which is less than the rate of inflation.
• Regulation of the private sector – Generation Rent says that the private rental sector is “astonishingly unregulated” and that there are not enough environmental health teams to deal with rogue landlords flouting the law. However, the RLA says that the sector is already bogged down in red tape and there are more than 100 Acts of Parliament to deal with.
Who’s Paying?
Another point made by the RLA in response to Generation Rent’s manifesto is the perfectly valid question of who exactly is going to pay for all the proposals suggested?