The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act – Update
Hello, The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 came into force in October 2022 and introduced extra protections for tenants.
The Act aims to protect tenants by temporarily:
restricting landlords from increasing the amount of rent they can charge tenants;
placing certain restrictions on enforcement of evictions from residential tenancies;
and balancing these restrictions with safeguards for those landlords who may be facing particular cost pressures or financial hardship
The rent cap applies to most tenants in the private rented sector. The rent cap was able to be expired in the social sector following a voluntary agreement being reached on rent setting with the sector. The rent cap was able to be suspended in the purpose built student accommodation sector due to evidence that the rent setting process for the academic year meant that the rent cap had minimal impact. The evictions protections continue to apply across all sectors.
The Scottish Parliament has approved a final six month extension of the Act, meaning that the following measures will be in place until 31 March 2024 at the latest:
most in-tenancy private rent increases will continue to be capped at 3% for any 12-month period;
enforcement of evictions will continue to be paused for six months for most tenants, except in a number of specified circumstances;
and landlords who may be facing particular cost pressures or financial hardship can apply for approval to increase rent by up to 6% to help cover certain increases in costs in a specified time period where these costs can be evidenced
You can view more information on these measures here: https://www.mygov.scot/rent-cap-landlords https://www.mygov.scot/eviction-pause-landlords
A New Deal for Tenants As set out in this year’s Programme for Government, the First Minister reaffirmed the Scottish Government’s commitment to delivering a New Deal for Tenants by seeking to create new tenants’ rights and powers for the introduction of a system of long term rent controls for the private rented sector.
You can view more information on this here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/programme-government-2023-24/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/new-deal-tenants-draft-strategy-consultation-paper/
To support our commitment, and to continue our engagement with stakeholders across landlord, tenant and investor groups, we have launched a questionnaire asking landlords and tenants a range of questions on the proposed reforms to the rented sector.
The questionnaire will be open to responses for 4 weeks, closing on Friday 27 October 2023.
You can access it here: https://consult.gov.scot/better-homes-division/rented-sector-reform-landlord-and-tenant/
A supporting paper, providing more detail on our current proposals for a New Deal for Tenants, has also been published to help landlords and tenants who wish to respond to the questionnaire.
You can view the supporting paper here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/new-deal-tenants-rented-sector-reform-current-proposals/
Kind regards Scottish Government
This message has been sent on behalf of the Scottish Government by your Local Authority and relates to you as a registered landlord. It is important that all registered landlords receive these communications as they contain information about landlord responsibilities which may affect your registration. Please contact your local authority if you require further support or would like to be removed as one of their landlords https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk/local-authority-contact
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