Deregulation Act 2015 – Continuing to impact on residential landlords and tenants

The Deregulation Act 2015 was passed on the 26 March 2015 and introduced incremental changes relevant to residential tenancies. There are a number of provisions that landlords and tenants will need to be aware of.

Provisions coming into force from 26 March 2015

Provisions came into force to provide clarification to Landlords on the steps that they must take to comply with the Tenancy Deposit Legislation. Landlords were given a 90 day grace period to protect deposits and provide the prescribed information which expired on 23 June 2015. If a Landlord has not completed the required steps, then they face the consequences of being unable to use the Section 21 Notice procedure (which is the usual process by which a landlord obtains possession of the property from the tenant) , and may face a financial penalty of between one and three times the deposit.

Provisions coming into force from 1 July 2015

The Secretary of State has been given the power to make regulations to:

Prescribe a new form of Section 21 Notice to be used.

Require a Landlord to provide prescribed information about the rights and responsibilities of the Landlord and Tenant. A Landlord will not be able to serve a Section 21 Notice if they are in breach of this requirement.

Set out a number of “prescribed requirements” which will relate to energy performance, the condition of the dwelling house, and health and safety of the occupiers. These requirements could impose a number of obligations on a Landlord which would need to be complied with before a Section 21 Notice could be served.

Provisions coming into force from 1 October 2015

A Landlord will not be able to serve a Section 21 Notice within the first four months of the tenancy.

The requirement for the date specified within the Section 21 Notice to be the end of the fixed term/end of periodic tenancy will be removed. However, the tenant will have a statutory right to claim back any rent paid in advance where the tenancy is ended before the end of a payment period.

Perhaps the most important change, are provisions to protect tenants from “retaliatory evictions’

Retaliatory evictions

These provisions apply to the situation where a tenant has complained about the common parts of a building or the conditions of the premises, and either the landlord does not respond within 14 days, provides an inadequate response, or responds by serving a Section 21 Notice. The tenant can then complain to the housing authority, who may serve various types of enforcement notice on the landlord, which prevents the serving of a section 21 notice for six months.

The tenant’s original complaint needs to be in writing; however, the provisions still apply if the tenant does not know the landlords email or postal address, or if they made reasonable attempts to contact the landlord to complain. It is important for landlords to ensure that their tenant has adequate means to contact them.

Good news for landlords

With the exception of the provisions of prescribed information, the new rules coming in on 1 July and 1 October only apply to new assured shorthold tenancies (AST) granted after that date. They will not apply to a fixed term AST granted prior to that date, even if after the relevant date it becomes a statutory periodic tenancy.

However, Landlords need to be aware of these provisions now, and take appropriate steps to ensure that they do not lose the right to use the Section 21 procedure. The system has become more complex for landlords to remove tenants, and it remains to be seen how Judges will interpret the new provisions.

In any event, after the end of the period of three years from the date on which the provision came into force, they apply to any AST in existence.

Should you have any more queries then please do not hesitate to contact Andrew Raby