(2) what recent steps the Government have taken to increase public awareness of the rights of private tenants;
(3) what recent steps the Government have taken to prevent private landlords retaining rental deposits without justification.
The Government are keen to promote a strong private rented sector that acts professionally and meets the needs of all its customers. In January this year, we commissioned Julie Rugg and David Rhodes at the centre for housing policy at York university to carry out an independent review looking at how the sector is operating and what can be done to improve the experience of both landlords and tenants. The review, published on 23 October, puts forward some very interesting ideas on how to raise standards and professionalism in the sector which we will be considering in consultation with stakeholders.
We have already introduced measures to protect tenants’ deposits. Under the Housing Act 2004, landlords are required to protect the deposits for all assured shorthold tenancies that have been created since 6 April 2007 in one of three Government-approved schemes. These arrangements are designed to safeguard the interests of both landlords and tenants, ensuring good practice in deposit handling, so that when a tenant pays a deposit and is entitled to get it back, he or she can be assured that this will happen. The arrangements also include measures to assist with the resolution of disputes, which are designed to make disagreements over the repayment of the deposit faster and cheaper to resolve. The scheme has got off to an excellent start. In the first year, nearly one million deposits totalling over £900 million were protected under the new arrangements at the rate of 2,500 deposits a day.
Details of the tenancy deposit protection arrangements and other regularly updated publicity material setting out tenants’ rights are available on the Department’s website and through:
www.direct.gov.uk