Political comment: City MP taking action to protect Portsmouth renters

Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan has voted for greater rights and protections to our city’s tenants, including backing government plans to end no fault evictions and reform grounds for possession.

This week Mr Morgan voted in favour of the Renters’ Rights Bill which will ban no fault evictions, removing the threat of arbitrary evictions and increasing tenant security and stability.

This Bill is the most significant package of reforms to the rented sector in over 40 years and it will deliver on the government’s manifesto commitment to provide greater security and stability for more than 11 million private renters.

Millions of people in England live day in, day out with the knowledge that they and their families could be uprooted from their home with little notice and minimal justification.

Mr Morgan has long campaigned for strengthened tenants’ rights and protections, and recently hosted a Cuppa and Chat event in Portsmouth to discuss these issues with constituents.

The Renters’ Rights Bill will:

• Abolish section 21 evictions and move to a simpler tenancy structure where all assured tenancies are periodic. We will implement this new system in one stage, giving all tenants security immediately.
• Ensure possession grounds are fair to both parties. The bill introduces new safeguards for tenants, giving them more time to find a home if landlords evict to move in or sell, and ensuring unscrupulous landlords cannot misuse grounds.
• Provide stronger protections against backdoor eviction by ensuring tenants are able to appeal excessive above-market rents which are purely designed to force them out. As now, landlords will still be able to increase rents to market price for their properties and an independent tribunal will make a judgement on this, if needed.
• Introduce a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman that will provide quick, fair, impartial and binding resolution for tenants’ complaints about their landlord. This will bring tenant-landlord complaint resolution on par with established redress practices.
• Create a Private Rented Sector Database to help landlords understand their legal obligations and demonstrate compliance, and help tenants to make informed decisions when entering into a tenancy agreement. It will also support local councils to target enforcement activity where it is needed most. Landlords will need to be registered on the database in order to use certain possession grounds.
• Give tenants strengthened rights to request a pet in the property, which the landlord must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse. To support this, landlords will be able to require pet insurance to cover any damage to their property.
• Apply the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector to give renters safer, better value homes and remove the blight of poor-quality homes in local communities.
• Apply ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the sector, setting clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords must take action to make homes safe where they contain serious hazards.
• Make it illegal for landlords and agents to discriminate against prospective tenants in receipt of benefits or with children – helping to ensure everyone is treated fairly when looking for a place to live.
• End the practice of rental bidding by prohibiting landlords and agents from asking for or accepting offers above the advertised rent. Landlords and agents will be required to publish an asking rent for their property and it will be illegal to accept offers made above this rate.
• Strengthen local authority enforcement by expanding civil penalties, introducing a package of investigatory powers and bringing in a new requirement for local authorities to report on enforcement activity.
• Strengthen rent repayment orders by extending them to superior landlords, doubling the maximum penalty and ensuring repeat offenders have to repay the maximum amount.

Commenting, Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan said:

“For too long, renters in Portsmouth have not been given the rights they deserve to ensure they have a safe and secure home.

“Under the Tories we saw empty promises to renters and continued failure to stand up to the vested interests which meant too many private tenants across the country had to live in unsafe and insecure homes.

“The government’s new package of measures will transform rights for thousands of private renters in Portsmouth and will ensure no family is again evicted from their home for no reason.”

Mr Morgan has long campaigned to increase social and affordable housing in Portsmouth and increase the rights of renters in the city.