Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Coffey and Lord Shipley

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, there are four amendments in this group relating to Clauses 22 and 23 on notices to quit, so I wish to move Amendment 171 and speak to Amendments 172, 174, and 175.

The background to these amendments has been raised by front-line advisors of Citizens Advice. I thank them for their contribution to our consideration of this Bill, and I hope the Minister will be able to allay the concerns that they have expressed when she responds. These concerns relate to how tenants serve, withdraw or reduce notice in joint tenancies, and the length of notice that tenants must give to leave before the expiration of an eviction notice that they had been served using the new, no-fault grounds 1 and 1A.

It may come as a surprise to some to realise that, in joint tenancies, one tenant can serve a notice to quit to the landlord, ending the tenancy for all tenants without the other joint tenants knowing that this has happened. Tenants remaining in the property might not know that a notice has been served until the landlord expresses an intention to issue a claim for possession on the basis that the tenancy has been ended by a notice to quit. This would put the remaining tenants in a very vulnerable position, at risk of homelessness and liable for court costs. This is the status quo with periodic tenancies, but it could become a more common problem when all tenancies become periodic. It is important for one joint tenant to be able to end a joint tenancy unilaterally—I accept that—but a mechanism is essential to ensure that all joint tenants are notified.

Similarly, while it is welcome that the Bill provides for reduced notice by agreement between landlord and tenant, it should be stipulated that this is only where all joint tenants agree in writing. Otherwise, there is a risk that a departing joint tenant and their landlord will agree to bring a tenancy to an end very quickly, potentially without the remaining joint tenant being aware. In terms of the withdrawal of notice, there is a similar problem. In theory, one joint tenant could issue a notice to quit, and the other joint tenant and the landlord could agree that it will be withdrawn. The solution is to require that the agreement of all joint tenants is needed for the withdrawal of a notice.

There is a further issue when a tenant serves notice, but when the other tenant would have sought to transfer the tenancy solely to them if they had known notice was being served. This happens most often when joint tenants go through a relationship breakdown and the tenant who leaves serves a notice to quit, sometimes with the intention of harming the remaining tenant. Yet the remaining tenant could have gone to court to get an injunction to prevent the departing tenant from serving the notice to quit, allowing time for the tenancy to be transferred to them under family law. The remaining joint tenant would then retain the security of tenure and not be made homeless. It is important to note that many of these cases involve children.

When a tenant receives an eviction notice based on the new no-fault grounds 1 and 1A, they must still give two months’ notice, even if they need to leave the property before the expiration of the eviction notice. Yet in a fast-moving rental market, tenants often have to move quickly to secure an appropriate new home before their eviction notice expires; tenants may therefore face having to start a new tenancy before their current one has ended in order to avoid homelessness. There would be a new deposit, a first month’s rent, and often household bill costs on the new property, while also paying rent and household bills on their current home. This creates a very high-cost burden for tenants and can push those on a lower income into significant debt or put them at risk of homelessness if they cannot cover these costs or find a property with an aligning tenancy start date. This issue will be amplified with the Bill’s increase in tenant notice from one month to two.

This group of amendments would, first, require joint tenants to be notified by both the landlord and any tenant giving notice, that a notice to quit has been submitted and the tenancy will come to an end on a specified date. We should note that this amendment reflects the notification requirements of Section 130 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

Secondly, the amendments would ensure that a tenant’s notice to quit can be reduced or withdrawn, through agreement with a landlord, only if all joint tenants agree to it in writing.

Thirdly, they would allow withdrawal of a tenant notice in circumstances where a transfer or assignment of the tenancy to a remaining tenant is a viable option, which would remove the need to anticipate and pre-empt a notice to quit with an injunction.

Finally, they would reduce the notice a tenant must give to one month when notice has been served to them on grounds 1 and 1A, which would give much-needed flexibility to tenants and help them manage the high cost of moving, which is unaffordable to many low-income renters.

I hope the Minister will give due consideration to those issues, which I think are very important. I have learned a little about joint tenancies that I did not know before Citizens Advice got in touch. I hope that the Minister will be willing to give further consideration and detail to this so that, on Report, we can produce the amendments that are necessary to solve the problems that have been identified.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I was intrigued by the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, today and it is interesting to hear that they have come from Citizens Advice. I am conscious that things have evolved over time, and he mentioned relationship breakdown. As somebody who used to rent with other people, I know there was always a certain risk when you took on a tenancy that somebody could walk out and you would be left liable.

I guess I am trying to understand—perhaps I was not listening quite closely enough—whether we will get to a point where, instead of people coming together, this will drive more accommodation into houses of multiple occupation.

I will give your Lordships my personal experience. I was working for a very large company when I moved to another city, which reflected the job situation that I needed. There is no doubt that I deliberately sought out situations that were not exactly HMOs but where individual contracts and tenancies were allowed with the landlord, so that it would not fall on my shoulders to think about these issues.

I suppose I am trying to understand how this amendment would address the situation of making sure that there are enough tenancies and enough accommodation available, without putting more risk on to the landlord. We are already seeing quite a substantial change. I understand why the Government set this out in their manifesto and similar. I appreciate that there may be some differences on some of the impact but, perhaps when the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, follows up—I am happy to discuss this outside—it would be useful to discuss how much of a genuine, as opposed to theoretical, problem this really is.