The Scottish Housing Regulator is consulting on proposals for how it regulates social housing in Scotland. It is inviting tenants, landlords and others with an interest in its work to give their views by 15 December.

In its proposals, the Regulator explains how it will continue to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants, people who are homeless and others who use social landlords’ services.

A key proposal would see the Regulator introduce a new provision to its statutory guidance to allow the Regulator to require landlords to provide explicit assurance in the Annual Assurance Statement (AAS) on a specific issue or issues.  

The Regulator also proposes changes to strengthen the emphasis in its Regulatory Framework on social landlords listening to tenants and service users, to make it clearer when a social landlord is non-compliant, and to initiate a comprehensive review of the Annual Return on the Charter which it will consult on next year.

George Walker, the Regulator’s Chair, said “Our proposals reflect the feedback from stakeholders on our discussion paper from earlier this year. Since then we’ve continued to discuss our ideas at meetings and events, to develop and test our thinking.

“Overall, stakeholders have told us that in general the current Regulatory Framework works well and remains relevant and appropriate. We’ve also seen a clear appetite from those involved in social housing for a period of stability and for changes to be kept to a minimum. There was also general support from tenants, landlords, investors and representative bodies for the approach that we set out in the discussion paper and for the changes we proposed.

“Thank you to everyone who has shared their views so far. This has been a really constructive discussion, and your feedback has been invaluable. The draft Regulatory Framework and guidance we are now proposing have been shaped by your feedback, and will continue to be informed by your responses to this consultation.”

The Regulator will use the consultation feedback to develop its final Regulatory Framework and guidance which it will publish in February 2024 and implement on 1 April 2024.

Read the consultation package 

Rented Sector Reform

As set out in this year’s Programme for Government, the First Minister reaffirmed our commitment to delivering a New Deal for Tenants by creating new tenants’ rights and powers for the introduction of a system of long term rent controls for the private rented sector. To support that, and to continue our engagement with stakeholders across landlord, tenant and investor groups, we have launched an engagement questionnaire seeking to ask landlords and tenants a range of questions on our proposed reforms to the rented sector.

The questionnaire can be accessed via Citizen Space, the Scottish Government’s consultation platform, and will be open to responses for 4 weeks, closing on Friday 27 October. You can access it here:

https://consult.gov.scot/better-homes-division/rented-sector-reform-landlord-and-tenant

A supporting paper, providing more detail on our current proposals for a New Deal for Tenants, has been published to help landlords and tenants who wish to respond to the questionnaire.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 came into force in October 2022 and introduced extra protections for tenants. The Act aims to protect tenants by temporarily:

• restricting private sector landlords from increasing the amount of rent they can charge private sector tenants;
• placing certain restrictions on enforcement of evictions from residential tenancies in both the private and social rented sectors; and
• balancing these restrictions with safeguards for those private landlords who may be facing particular cost pressures or financial hardship

The rent cap applies to most tenants in the private rented sector.

The rent cap was able to be expired in the social sector following a voluntary agreement being reached on rent setting with the sector.

The rent cap was able to be suspended in the purpose built student accommodation sector due to evidence that the rent setting process for the academic year meant that the rent cap had minimal impact.

The evictions protections continue to apply across all sectors.

The Scottish Parliament has approved a final six month extension of the Act, meaning that the following measures will be in place until 31 March 2024 at the latest:

most in-tenancy private sector rent increases will continue to be capped at 3% for any 12-month period;

• enforcement of evictions will continue to be paused for six months for most tenants, except in a number of specified circumstances; and
• private sector landlords who may be facing particular cost pressures or financial hardship can apply for approval to increase rent by up to 6% to help cover certain increases in costs in a specified time period where these costs can be evidenced

You can view more information on the measures here:

Cost of living: rent and eviction – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Charter helps to improve the quality and value of services provided by social landlords in Scotland. It sets the standards and outcomes that all social landlords should aim to achieve when performing their housing activities.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-housing-charter-november-2022/documents/

Scottish Government – “We are consulting on the draft A New Deal for Tenants – rented sector strategy, which seeks to improve accessibility, affordability choices and standards across the whole rented sector in Scotland.  “

https://www.gov.scot/publications/new-deal-tenants-draft-strategy-consultation-paper/

The Scottish Social Housing Charter review consultation is now live.

It can be accessed via the following link: https://consult.gov.scot/social-housing-services/scottish-social-housing-charter-review/

The consultation will close on the 9 September 2021.