The government has no clear understanding of the impact the Renters’ Rights Act will have on the Tribunal responsible for hearing rent appeal cases, according to leading property lawyer David Smith.
His analysis is based on new information obtained through a Freedom of Information request, which reveals that the Government does not hold data on the average time it takes the Tribunal to consider, process, and rule on rent increase appeals.
The revelation comes even though the Renters’ Rights Act encourages tenants to challenge any and all rent increases proposed by their landlord — and despite Government assurances that it will intervene if the Tribunal becomes overwhelmed.
Under the Act, which is due to come into force on 1 May next year, every private renter will have the right to challenge a proposed rent rise that exceeds local market rates. But currently, the only definitive way to determine whether a rent increase is above market level is to take the case to the Tribunal, potentially driving a surge in appeals.
What’s more, even if the Tribunal agreed with a proposed rent increase by a landlord, Smith, a partner at Spector, Constant and Williams, argues that tenants would have nothing to lose and everything to gain from challenging any rent increase given that:
+ Tenants can bring cases to the Tribunal for free.
+ The Tribunal will not be able to judge that a rent increase should be higher than what was originally proposed by a landlord.
+Any increase would take affect from the day the Tribunal makes its decision, not from the point when a landlord initially suggested an increase take affect from. This means there could be many months of delay of a rent increase taking affect.
+ The Tribunal will be able to defer a rent increase by up to two months from the point that it makes a decision to prevent undue hardship.
The government has given itself the power to enable rent increases ruled upon by the Tribunal to be backdated where it feels the system is becoming “overwhelmed”. However, it has not explained how it defines the system being overwhelmed, and, as a result of the Freedom of Information request published today, it has confirmed it does not have the basic data needed to judge the impact of the Act on the Tribunal.
Smith said: “It is simply bizarre that the government is failing to collect basic data on the performance of the rental appeals Tribunal. For all its talk of not wanting the system to be overwhelmed, without measuring the average time taken to process rent cases both now and in the future there will be no way of knowing the impact the Renters’ Rights Act is actually having and what additional resources are required by the Tribunal to operate effectively.
“If ministers are serious about wanting their reforms to work, they need urgently to measure, and publish in full, baseline data on the performance of the Tribunal now. The government should regularly publish this data to ensure everyone can see if, and when, the Tribunal starts to struggle with the anticipated massive increase in rent appeal cases it is asked to consider.”
