Labour ‘forcing landlords out of Wales,’ claim Tories

Welsh Tories have hit out at new legislation which provides six months’ notice for no-fault evictions, saying overregulation is “driving landlords out of the private sector”.

Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 comes into force on December 1, 2022 and will apply to councils, housing associations, supported housing and private accommodation and has major implications, including giving greater security to tenants and placing new responsibilities on landlords.

People with rolling tenancies will need to be given six months’ notice for no-fault evictions rather than the current period of two months under last-minute changes to the Act.

Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Housing, Janet Finch-Saunders MS said: “landlords will be forced to give six months’ notice for no-fault evictions under last minute plans to change a housing law”.

“Once again, we see Labour ministers moving the goalposts for landlords. Labour ministers in Cardiff Bay have taken too much time to address this legislation and have created chaos in the private housing sector.

“Concerningly, this six-month rule will now apply from 2023 to existing tenancies. This overregulation is driving landlords out of the private sector and Labour won’t be satisfied until there are none left in Wales.

“Labour ministers need to focus on the true cause of the housing crisis – their failure to build enough houses in Wales.”

‘Ban no-fault evictions’

The Welsh Liberal Democrats have stated that the Renting Homes Act doesn’t go far enough to protect tenants and have called for an inquiry as to why the Act has taken six years to come into effect.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats however have argued that no-fault evictions should be banned in their entirety as has been done in both Scotland and England and that Labour is letting Wales fall behind the rest of the UK when it comes to protections for tenants.

The Renting Homes Act was originally introduced in 2016 but has suffered a series of delays and significant changes which some opposition parties, including the Liberal Democrats see as a watering down of previous commitments.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MS said: “It is utterly shameful that action on no-fault evictions is set to be delayed to June next year, six months after the already extremely delayed Renting Homes Act finally comes into force.

“Worse than just a delay we are seeing that the Act will leave us significantly behind Scotland and England when it comes to banning no-fault evictions in their entirety.

“This Act has been a disaster from start to end, it should not take the Senedd over six years to introduce legislation. We now need an inquiry into what went wrong with the introduction of this act to ensure it doesn’t happen again and that the taxpayers are getting value for their money when it comes to introducing new legislation.”