Tenants and landlords either unsure of, or not confident with Renters’ Rights Act changes

Alongside the Better Renting initiative, the Nationwide Foundation is a funder that wants to pull all levers possible across the system to improve the private rented sector (PRS), while recognising that with such a complex system, “there is no silver bullet”.

Rory Hughes is a self-described “housing policy geek” and recently turned grant funder in his new role at the Nationwide Foundation as programme manager for transforming the PRS.

Mr Hughes explained how his organisation commissioned an academic, Julie Rugg, to author a report entitled Supporting Systemic Change in the Private Rented Sector: What don’t we know?.

He said: “It was basically an attempt to audit all of the research gaps across the sector and key policy issues that we might want to address over the coming years – and there’s a lot of them, there’s maybe 50-odd that Julie identified – and we use this to launch a programme of work called the Private Renting Knowledge Hub, which is basically an attempt by us to begin filling those research gaps.

“We need to move [the PRS] away from being a kind of side hustle for a pension and into something that many people at this conference today, who work in social housing, see it as a profession, and drive forward change that way, and I see letting agents I think work as a key player in that process, and I think government implicitly was saying we need to professionalise the private rented sector through the act.”

He added: “Letting agents have material interests themselves. So, the reason why rent increases are more common, and evictions are more common, is because letting agents take a cut from higher rents being charged, and they also get a cut from tenant find initiatives and turnover of tenancies. So that’s quite a difficult thing to solve.”

Mr Hughes explained that his organisation will be looking at proposing some solutions to these issues and its research later in the year.

Some of the foundation’s funding also went to the Renters Reform Coalition (RRC).

Niamh Evans leads the policy work of the RRC, a group of 18 leading organisations campaigning for renters’ rights and a fairer housing system.

She brings experience working on policy areas including housing, the built environment and financial inclusion. Ms Evans chose to focus on what comes next after the Renters’ Rights Act in making the system fairer for renters.

She said: “We need to start thinking about what’s next, because the act does aim to rebalance the power dynamic between renters and landlords, and there are a huge number of changes that have already come in. 

“However, there’s a huge amount that the legislation sets out to come in through secondary legislation, which will include things such as the PRS database, the PRS Ombudsman, and Awaab’s Law for the PRS as well. 

“These will take a lot of work from the government, and it’s a campaigning priority for us at the moment, in making sure the government gets this right, that these aren’t watered down, and that these protections really do work in practice.

“So, for example, the database we’ve been focusing on at the moment, we really need the government to push forward with this at pace, but also include as wide a set of information as possible.

“For example, having details around the enforcement action that might have previously been taken against the landlord if they’ve been prosecuted or fined. It’s really important that that information is made available to renters when they’re considering starting a tenancy.

“We also be really pushing for this information to be made transparent, because it would be really important, not just for renters to be able to enforce the identified breaches of the Renters’ Rights Act, but also for local authorities and their enforcement, and for policymakers in understanding what’s going on in the sector on the ground.”