Government plans to bring out a new law to ensure that private sector will be forced to bring their properties up to the national standards for the first time under plans to be unveiled in the government’s levelling-up strategy.
Michael Gove, the housing secretary, will announce legislation that will require landlords to refit about 800,000 properties that don’t meet requirements to be “safe, warm and in a good state of repair”. The law will also be introduced a register that anyone renting a house must join, with rogue landlords being ejected from the list. All tenants in the private rental sector would also gain a new right to redress for complaints about their homes.
The moves, long demanded by campaigners, will bring the private rental sector into line with the obligations to rent out “decent” properties required of councils and housing associations. These are being reviewed by Gove with the intention that they be toughened and applied to the whole rented sector.
This could include new measures on energy efficiency, as well as a minimum standard of fixtures and fittings for furnished accommodation. Ministers hope to halve the number of poor-quality rented homes by 2030.
Official figures suggest that 4.4 million families rent their home from a private landlord, representing 19 per cent of all households in England. But the English Housing Survey in 2019 estimated that 23 per cent of those did not meet the “decent home standards”; about 1.1 million homes.
