Serious concerns have been raised about the Tribunal system’s ability to cope with increasing rent appeals now the Renters’ Rights Act has come into force, it has been revealed.

The latest research into Tribunals has revealed delays, missing data and limited preparedness.

The findings come from data obtained by real estate trade body RE:UK through Freedom of Information requests to five Tribunal Property Chambers.

No data

It shows that in three Chambers, 2,944 cases were recorded in the past three years. However, only one Chamber held data on how long cases took to conclude, while another confirmed it held no information at all.

In addition, just 21% of appeals were decided within 10 weeks prior to the Act, meaning around 80% take mroe than ten weeks to decide.

Ministers have also admitted they do not hold centralised data on appeal volumes or processing times, making it impossible to establish a reliable baseline to measure whether the system is overwhelmed, leaving the Government unable to trigger its own safeguard procedures.

RE:UK warns this undermines a key commitment to backdate rent in unsuccessful appeals where the Tribunal is judged to be under strain.

We have new evidence which clearly demonstrates a clear and deeply concerning lack of consistent collection of rent appeal data.”

Assistant Director Kate Butler (pictured) says: “Here we have new evidence which clearly demonstrates a clear and deeply concerning lack of consistent collection of rent appeal data within the Tribunal process.

“Expanding the use of the s13 process to all tenancies will dramatically increase the number of appeals the Tribunal hears, and there is no evidence to suggest that it will be able to effectively deal with this.”

The Section 13 process is what landlords must use to raise rents in the new periodic tenancies, which tenants can challenge at a Tribunal.