COMMENT 14 Comment
Reimagining the Private Rented Sector
Mark Foxcroft at Devonshires examines how sweeping reforms are reshaping the Private Rented Sector, demanding higher standards, professional management, and shifting power toward institutional landlords.
T
he UK’s Private Rented Sector (PRS) is facing a seismic shiſt . Long characterised by fragmented ownership and inconsistent standards, the PRS is now the focus of a concerted Government eff ort to
professionalise its operations, management, and regulatory framework to make it more akin to the Social Housing Sector (SHS). Unlike the SHS, which has long operated under a proactive regulatory regime, the PRS has historically faced much more light touch regulation. T e Government hopes to professionalise the PRS by introducing or
enhancing several key pillars. T is includes improving standards and regulation, professionalising management, boosting predictability and transparency, and encouraging institutional investment. For tenants, this should mean better service, more secure housing and higher quality homes. For the market, it promises stability and long term investment, which will help to meet housing demand. For the Government, it supports broader housing policy goals around aff ordability, safety and sustainability. Overall, this focus on the PRS is unsurprising given its market size. T e
Government’s recent “English Private Landlord Survey 2024” showed the number of PRS households rising from 3.1 million to 4.7 million between 2008- 09 and 2023-24 to become England’s second largest tenure.
REFORMING THE PRS T e professionalisation of the PRS is not a new concept. It gained momentum with the formerly named Renters’ Reform Bill, fi rst announced in 2022, and further with subsequent Government consultations. T is Bill transitioned into the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is expected to
become law in Autumn. T e aim remains the same, as the Government seeks to rebalance the relationship between landlords and private tenants. T e Bill marks a critical turning point for the industry, seeking as it does
to close the gap between private and social housing by creating a fairer, more transparent, more regulated, and reshaped rental market. It will increase landlord accountability and enhance tenant rights. T e Bill seeks to do this with numerous new measures, including a new
mandatory redress scheme and a PRS Landlord Ombudsman. Providing “quick, fair, impartial and binding resolution for tenants’ complaints about their landlord”, these would bring tenant landlord complaint resolution on par with the more established social housing tenant redress practices and require PRS Landlords to have in place robust complaints procedures. Alongside this, a new PRS Database is proposed. Landlords will be legally
required to register details about themselves and their properties, with the database showing any off ences or penalties they have incurred. T ere are also plans to abolish ‘no fault’ evictions to reassure, as the
MHCLG has stated: “tenants then can challenge bad practice without the fear of retaliatory eviction, as landlords will need to provide a valid cause to end a tenancy early”.
While this is laudable, the reality is that the removal of no fault evictions will
mean the already strained County Court possession process will come under further pressure due to additional time needed for possession hearings. T is may ultimately lead to a worse situation for both PRS landlords and tenants, with cases dragging on for many months. At the same time, landlords will have to reckon with the extension of Awaab’s
Law to the PRS. T is will set clear legal expectations of the timeframes within which PRS landlords must take action to make homes safe where they contain serious hazards. Moreover, this Bill and ongoing consultation on a reformed Decent Homes Standard for social and privately rented homes (ending on 10 September) seek to establish the minimum housing standards these tenants can expect from landlords. T is will create safer homes. Finally, the currently open LAFRA 2024 consultation on strengthening
leaseholder protections over charges and services (closing on 26 September) seeks to regulate and introduce mandatory qualifi cations for managing agents. T is upskilling of managing agents, who play a vital and ever growing role in the management of PRS stock, will further embed professionalism, hopefully addressing one of private tenants’ major gripes: dissatisfaction with the agent that manages their property and with whom they have most contact. Taken together, these reforms represent the most signifi cant overhaul
of the PRS in decades, with consequences for the market and smaller landlords therein.
THE FUTURE OF THE PRS T e reforms are expected to aff ect smaller landlords disproportionately, with their less sizeable portfolios and oſt en more limited resources to meet
Housing Management & Maintenance October/November 2025
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