Opinion: Hannah Slater

Across Scotland, private rented housing is unaffordable, insecure, and unsafe for too many tenants. Major private renting reforms were introduced in Scotland from 2017 through the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 to enable tenants to better assert their rights, challenge rent rises, and ask for repairs. This included the introduction of the new private residential tenancy.

The Nationwide Foundation believes that much can be learned from the impacts of these reforms. That’s why we are pleased to fund the RentBetter project by Indigo House, which is gathering longitudinal evidence to understand how the changes are impacting tenants and landlords. The first wave of the research found that the changes were beneficial for tenants in general.

The wave two findings, published last month, focus on the experiences of tenants on lower incomes and those in housing need. These findings come at a useful time, as the Scottish Government develops its plans for further legislation affecting tenants.

First, while tenants have been given more rights in legislation, the research found that many renters are still unaware of these rights and often don’t know whether they have the new private residential tenancy.

Indigo House recommended that landlords or letting agents should provide tenants with information about the key tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities at the start of each tenancy. This could be delivered quite simply, in the form of both an easy-to-read leaflet and a verbal walkthrough for tenants.

Secondly, independent information and early advice are crucial to help renters better understand and exercise their rights, but worryingly, the study found evidence of reducing provision in face-to-face advice services over the last three years. This decline began even before the pandemic. Boosting advice services for tenants must also be borne in mind by the Scottish Government, as new rights cannot be exercised if renters do not know they have them.

Thirdly, the evidence from the research shows that tenancy reform in isolation is not enough to adequately improve security, property conditions and affordability for lower-income renters. The weak market power of tenants on low incomes means that they still fear to ask for repairs or challenge their landlords, worried about reprisals like rent rises – or worse, eviction – when their access to other housing options is severely limited.

The First-tier Tribunal (Property & Housing Chamber) was set up to take pressure off the courts with housing cases. But just 4% of all applications to the tribunal in 2019-20 were for repairs, despite the private rented sector having the worst conditions of all tenure types in Scotland. This suggests that the fear of reprisals has a very real effect on reporting. In part, this could be dealt with through proactive, targeted enforcement by local authorities – particularly at the lower end of the market – which would mean that poor-quality housing could be identified without renters needing to use redress routes. However, this would generate a significant amount of work for already at-capacity local authority housing teams, and provision of extra resource would be vital in ensuring its success.

In addition to better resourcing of enforcement systems and advice services, further reforms must ensure that redress is more accessible to both tenants and landlords, including by simplifying the tribunal system and speeding up case times by providing more resources and capacity.

The research also found signs of reduced private renting stock in Scotland. In certain parts of the market, more landlords are planning to exit the private renting sector; in particular, those letting to students and people on low incomes or benefits were more likely to be thinking of leaving.

Given that the weak market power of financially vulnerable tenants is already a barrier to these households accessing their rights, it is concerning that their position may be further weakened by landlords leaving this segment of the market. This is something the Scottish Government should consider and take action to address.

While the reforms so far have improved the rights of private renters overall, the RentBetter research demonstrates the limits of what can be achieved by legislative reform for low-income renters, when market factors make new rights difficult to realise in practice. Improving the situation of low-income tenants is complex and will require addressing challenges that sit beyond the confines of private renting policy, such as benefits, wider cost of living, and social home building.