Summary version
February 2024
Our Vision
Today, more H&F residents are living in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) than ever before. Affordable, accessible, secure and high-quality private rented housing is what many of our residents require to ensure that the borough remains a place where people want to live, work, and thrive.
Our new draft policy for the PRS brings a refreshed and renewed focus to how we will tackle poorly performing parts of the PRS market, setting a clear course of action for the future.
Our aspiration is to tilt the balance of power back into the hands of tenants, and to improve private rented housing standards to make them among the best in London.
We also want to grow the many exemplary landlords, including local residents, and letting agencies operating across the borough that provide an important, professional, and dependable service.
We welcome comments on the draft policy through completing an online survey or participating in focus groups. If you require assistance in completing the survey or would like to be considered to participate in any of our focus groups, please contact policy@lbhf.gov.uk
The private rented sector in H&F
For a number of years, we have been delivering a comprehensive set of measures designed to improve the experience of private renting in our borough, by driving up standards through effective regulation and enforcement including through our Private Rented Sector Licensing schemes.
This draft policy highlights the positive work already being undertaken by H&F, but also outlines new work and progress we are seeking to improve the sector going forward.
The PRS in H&F now accounts for approximately 36% of our homes and is the largest single tenure in the borough. With the growth in the size of the sector, there are legitimate concerns about the standards of private renting for some residents; the rising costs of renting; and the need to make private renting fairer for all.
The PRS is the least secure tenure, and tenants’ experience often comes down to their relationship with their landlord. PRS homes are also more likely to fall short in standards when compared to social rented and privately owned homes, with safety hazards, poor heating or insulation, or outdated kitchen or bathroom amenities.
The PRS needs reform, beginning with swift implementation of the Renters Reform Bill and other measures to bring regulation of the sector. H&F strongly supports abolishing section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions. New regulations must be allied with additional resources and powers for councils to enforce locally, and an ambitious national funding framework that brings PRS homes up to modern energy efficiency and accessibility standards. With these tools, we can work with residents and landlords to ensure that our private rented housing standards become among the best in London.
Our strategic priorities
To ensure private renting can deliver for our residents in the long-term, our draft policy has five strategic themes which we believe will help improve the sector.
Theme 1: Working together with residents and landlords
- Renters’ voice and engagement: We will put tenant engagement at the heart of our strategic approach, and Renters’ Voice activity will ensure we are hearing about their experience of renting in H&F.
- Better public awareness: We understand that not all those renting will understand their rights. We will improve our web-based resources and our relationships with estate agents and landlords, to ensure tenants have comprehensive information.
- Landlords forum: We will establish a new H&F Landlords forum to promote high standards and awareness of responsibilities, whilst providing a space to listen to the barriers landlords face in providing high quality accommodation.
- Landlords charter and accreditation: We will continue to promote the London Landlords Accreditation Scheme and membership of recognised landlords’ associations, and encourage all landlords in H&F to sign up to a renewed H&F Landlords’ Charter.
- Delivering our statutory duties: Making use of powers under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, we will expand helping residents access private rented properties that are safe and of decent standard to prevent homelessness.
Theme 2: Improving private rented quality, safety and energy efficiency
- Private sector licensing: We will continue delivering our ambitious selective and additional PRS licensing schemes, meaning that rented properties and their landlords are under enhanced scrutiny to ensure good housing standards. We will build our evidence and intelligence to inform whether the scheme’s expansion can deliver further benefits.
- Leading in safety: We will deliver safe housing solutions by supporting high standards in the PRS, working with the third sector to support victims of domestic violence, and maintaining our record of no children in Bed and Breakfast accommodation.
- Greening the private rented sector: We will innovate to enforce minimum energy efficiency standards and support landlords to go beyond this, to green their properties, taking steps to help tenants at risk from excess cold.
- More affordable energy efficient homes: We will continue to demand that developers build 50% genuinely affordable homes on residential developments, and ensure all new major developments are as energy efficient as possible. 3,000 new energy efficient affordable homes will be built or underway by 2026.
Theme 3: Delivering comprehensive enforcement action
- Comprehensive enforcement action: We will continue to enforce against inadequate maintenance, poor management – including where energy efficiency and insulation are poor – and illegal letting, taking measures to improve protections for residents, and enforcing against hazardous housing conditions.
- Accreditation and redress: We will take enforcement action against those landlords and letting agents who are not members of either the property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme and those who provide misleading or inaccurate information.
- Empty Homes: We will join up our approach across the Council to ensure that privately owned empty dwellings in the borough are brought back into use and use appropriate enforcement powers where owners are not willing to engage.
- Short-term lets: We will take action against unlawful short-term lets. We will campaign for broader, more far-reaching reform to short-term letting rules, with higher regulatory standards.
Theme 4: A fairer, more inclusive, and accessible private rented sector
- Disabled facilities grants (DFGs): Disabled residents face a significant challenge in accessing suitably adapted homes. We will continue to offer grants to help eligible Disabled people adapt their home to make it easier for them to continue to live there and/or maintain their independence.
- Wrap around support: We will provide wrap around support to residents with additional support needs, helping to negotiate accommodation with private landlords at Local Housing Allowance levels, so the property is affordable to benefit capped households.
- Refugees and Asylum Seekers: We believe that everyone deserves a safe home, and we will continue to work with the UK Home Office to rehouse refugees and asylum seekers - and we want to work with local landlords to achieve this.
- Tackling discrimination: We will seek to prevent discrimination by raising awareness of what constitutes discrimination - and related rights and obligations to landlords and tenants.
Theme 5: Shaping the national conversation
- Abolition of Section 21: We will continue to lobby for the end of Section 21 evictions and for the closure of loopholes where landlords might work around the rules to evict renters by other means.
- Local landlords register: We want to see a local landlords register that provides residents with information about their home and landlord, whilst helping us to enforce against consistently bad landlords.
- Decent Homes Standard: We want to see a new decent homes standard for the PRS and higher minimum energy efficient standards to help reduce energy bills for residents.
- More local resources: We are calling for increased powers and resources for councils, to acquire private rented homes and let them out at social or affordable rents, and to build more social and affordable homes.
Monitoring and review
A delivery group will monitor progress against the commitments in this policy, some of which are reliant on more HM Government funding. This will be led by a senior officer, who will carry out a review after one year of the policy being adopted, to ensure our actions are having the desired impact.
View the full draft private rented sector policy statement (pdf)