Landlords and letting agents have called on Ministers to omit student lets from their looming bans on both ‘rent in advance’ and fixed-term rental contracts within the Renters’ Reform Bill due to go live later this year.

Two landlords, as well a leading student lets agent, have been proffered up by Propertymark as proof of the Government’s misplaced enthusiasm for these – and other – measures within the Bill.

Several landlords, one of whom has properties within a development in London’s King’s Cross popular with students, has made the comments to Propertymark.

This landlord, like many others within the student lets market, is worried that the vast majority of foreign students – who have no track record in the UK or guarantors here and often pay at least six months’ rent up-front – will struggle to find accommodation once the Bill becomes law.

“It is not clear to me how the Renters’ Rights Bill will help qualified landlords that have to accept rent in advance from foreign students,” the landlord says.

“In that case, you must accept six months’ rent in advance and another six months during month four of a tenancy.

It is hard to understand how the Renters’ Rights Bill will operate in the real world.”

Other concerns aired by another landlord include how much the digital property portal will cost, and their fear that the end of Section 21 could lead to a rise in the number of rent protection insurance products being offered to safeguard landlords who are struggling to retrieve rental payments from tenants.

Another landlord adds that: “Fixed-term tenancies should be retained if it suits the students. Even after the first year it would mean that they are in for one year, and the landlord cannot sell or move anyone in. If I have to offer periodic tenancies, then I cannot tell others when I have units available for students.

“There must be a 12-month fixed-term because as a landlord, if I let to a student in December and they leave in May and June and then there is a four-month void, I will not then let to another student. Rents will have to go up.”

Sophie Lang, ARLA Propertymark Executive for Cornwall with 15 years’ experience in the student market says that within her own HMO lettings book, 11 per cent of properties are currently listed for sale as landlords begin to exit the market in response to the proposed reforms.

“The proposed changes will inadvertently discriminate against international students. Many rely on grants or scholarships from their home countries to pay rent upfront — a practice that may no longer be permissible under the new framework.”

Pic credit: Lang Llewellyn.