Tenant fees ban WILL drive up rents and lower property standards, MPs are told

MPs put the new housing minister Sajid Javid’s tenant fees ban legislation under scrutiny last night, and it was proven to be lacking on several fronts. Landlords are likely to increase their rents across the tenancy to pay the extra costs of running a tenancy, something the new law can’t stop, and that there is a substantial risk local councils will impose unjustifiably high fines on agents and landlords to finance enforcement, in the absence of government support, it was claimed. The other key criticism made during the session was that the draft bill is likely to be self-defeating – lower fees will mean letting agents are less incentivised to help landlords run their properties professionally. These views were all the more surprising given they came from experts from the policy end of the sector, not agents. The two-hour long session was held by the parliamentary committee that oversees Sajid’s department, the Select Committee that oversees the newly renamed Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Tenant fees ban Headed up by MP Clive Betts plus 11 other MPs, it quizzed three experts in the field about how effective the bill will be. These were Shelter’s Head of Policy Kate…

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