The new Housing (Scotland) Bill: some initial thoughts, with particular reference to rent and rent control areas

Posted on April 3, 2024 by basedrones

The hotly anticipated Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 27 March 2024. You can access the Bill and related materials on the Scottish Parliament’s website, and read the Scottish Government news release on its website.

Being a land reform hipster who also teaches a Housing Law module at the University of Strathclyde, it’s fair to say the one-two of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Housing (Scotland) Bill being introduced at Holyrood have kept me occupied of late. I can only imagine how busy the folks working on these Bills behind the scenes have been. Anyway, here’s me offering some initial thoughts on the latter of those. This post will not be as detailed as my earlier Land Reform (Scotland) Bill post, although I hope to signpost some resources (and hopefully deliver some insights) along the way. Also, unlike that data dump/holistic blog post, I’m going to divide my coverage into (relatively) bite-sized chunks. This post will offer a bit of an overall overview, and then turn to the substantive issue that accounts for just over one-third of the Housing (Scotland) Bill’s contents.

As with my Land Reform Bill post, I will start by giving a miscellaneous list of reactions to the Housing Bill. Some of these are captured in a thread I posted on X-formerly-known-as-Twitter. A useful resource is also available on the Scottish Association of Landlords’ website, in the form of a list of news stories where John Blackwood (its chief exec) was quoted. (He’s been busy.) Some other resources are also shared here, these particular resources being selected try to give a decent spread of views.

No slight on anyone not included in the above list is intended.

Some of this post a bit technical at times. With a better publisher/editor it could have been a bit shorter, although it remains unashamedly a post that is about law reform in this specialised practice area. As such, anyone with some underlying knowledge of that area and/or proficiency around legislative reform may find this easier to plough through as compared to other readers. I’m also conscious some of my (hopefully) useful or personalised observations are buried towards the end and some readers (with no criticism intended) might not get there, or be a tad enervated when they do. More strategic readers may wish to skim this post until my “Observations on the Bill’s rent provisions” heading (where, in very brief summary, I say the new Bill’s rent provisions contain some neat aspects but may also have some wrinkles, and also that some of the rhetoric that is being aimed at the rent provisions could perhaps be dialled down a tad).

Structure and context

The Housing (Scotland) Bill comprises seven Parts, plus a Schedule (of minor and consequential amendments to other statutes). Together, these provisions will reform the law around homelessness and both social rented and private rented sectors.

Social tenancies – where the landlord is either a local authority (often called a council) or a registered social landlord (often termed a housing association) – are largely governed by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001.

Private lets – where the land is not a local authority or RSL – are normally “private residential tenancies” (“PRTs”) in terms of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016, although some older statutes can govern tenancies entered into before December 2017.

Homelessness law – whereby those lacking a place where they can legally stay (or those threatened with the prospect of that scenario in the near future) can present to a local authority so as to be afforded temporary and then permanent accommodation – is largely governed by the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 (and also some regulations).

All of these statutes have been amended since they received Royal Assent (and indeed the second-oldest statute amended the oldest statute, and the youngest has amended the other two!). The new Bill brings further amendments to all of them. This led the experienced housing lawyer and First-tier Tribunal (Housing and Property Chamber) member Jim Bauld to put out a call on Twitter/X for a consolidation statute. It is difficult to disagree with this. At the very least, the homelessness provisions seem ripe to be taken from the middle of a 1980s Housing Act and rendered into a fresh Homelessness (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act.

The seven Parts of the new Bill are as follows.

Part 1 – the longest – is headed “Rent”. It has three chapters: “Designation of rent control areas”; “Rent control areas: modifications of the 2016 Act”; and “Other restrictions on rent increases”.

Part 2 is headed “Dealing with evictions”. It does not strictly have chapters, but if it did these would be “Evictions: duties to consider delay” and “Damages for unlawful eviction”.

Part 3 is about “Keeping pets and making changes to let property”.

Part 4 contains “Other matters relating to tenants”. This deals with the otherwise unrelated topics of: what to do with deposit money that has not been claimed back by a tenant after the lease has ended; registration of letting agents; tenant termination of a joint private residential tenancy; modernisation of the rules for notice/document service or delivery in the social sector (moving away from a strict deployment of the term “recorded delivery letter” in one context); and the possibility of converting ALL assured tenancies to the more modern PRT. I’ll offer some thoughts on all of those (save the mundane yet important notice provisions reform) in a future post.

Part 5 is about “Homelessness prevention”.

Part 6 contains “Other housing matters”. This contains provisions about the (esoteric) regulation of mobile homes, fuel poverty, and disclosure of information to the relevant ombudsman.

Part 7 – Final provisions – deals with regulation-making, interpretation, amendments, commencement and the short title – when it becomes an Act this will be the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025.

No further comment will be offered on Parts 6 and 7. I’ll work through the rest of the Bill sequentially, starting with this post on the Rent provisions.

Rent

We knew that long-term rent controls were coming, what with the recent Programme for Government and indeed prior soundings (including the Bute House Agreement) from the parties with the numbers to command the Scottish Parliament (not to mention Scottish Labour have been dabbling with fair rent proposals over the years). We have also had some temporary measures to curb in-tenancy rent increases in some way, shape or form since the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 started to bite. The last of those measures – rent adjudication – will expire in March 2025. The 2016 Act itself also contained a regime that could – if deployed – mitigate rent increases in designated “rent pressure zones”. So it is RIP RPZs, and we barely even knew you. Rent pressure zones never existed in the wild, and the framework for them is now to be replaced by a framework for “rent control areas” (which I will abbreviate to “RCAs”).

Laying the RCA groundwork

The outgoing rent pressure zone framework placed local authorities in a central role, in terms of evidence gathering and making a case for their introduction to Scottish Ministers (i.e. central government). Given there was never a successful RPZ it is difficult to offer anything other than pure speculation as to whether this was the best approach. Either way, local authorities are put to the front and centre of the rent provisions of the new Bill. Starting with section 1, a local authority is obliged to assess the level of rent payable AND the rate of increase in rent payable under “relevant tenancies” of properties in the area of the local authority, and then report on that to Scottish Ministers. The Bill is framed such that this needs to be done by 30 November 2026 – Happy St Andrews Day, local authority boffins – and then every five years, although that initial date and the time period for further reporting can be changed by regulation.

A ”relevant tenancy” means a private residential tenancy or an assured tenancy under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988 – i.e. this is not about rents paid by lodgers living with a resident landlord, or students who pay rent to a university or dedicated provider of student accommodation, or rent paid by social tenants. It is also not about tenancies governed by the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 (which will be the case for unbroken lets entered into prior to 2 January 1989) – they already have a dedicated fair rent regime and data about them is not relevant to this exercise.

In addition to furnishing the Scottish Ministers with statistics, the report is to state (with reasons) whether the local authority recommends that they designate all or any part of the area of the local authority as a rent control area under section 9(1). The usage of “all or any part” is significant – this would allow the whole of a local authority to be so designated, although one imagines it would only be the four city-specific local authorities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) who could make a sensible case for such an all-encompassing RCA (if appropriate circumstances applied). Further sections of the Bill: allow for interim assessments by a local authority if circumstances have changed markedly after the submission of a report but suitably before the next one is due; presage the provision of guidance to local authorities about what a report is to contain; and set out what Scottish Ministers must do with a report, including the potential to send a report back to a local authority if it is insufficient somehow and, after consideration of an appropriate report, respond with their own report about whether they propose to lay draft regulations designating all or part of the area of the local authority as a RCA.

Attention then turns to section 9, which provides that such designation should only happen if Ministers are satisfied that restricting the rate of increase in rent payable under private residential tenancies – yes, only private residential tenancies – in the area to be designated is necessary and proportionate for the purpose of protecting the social and economic interests of tenants there and (from the other perspective) is a necessary and proportionate control of landlords’ use of their property there. The language here is redolent of Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights and the (qualified) protection of the peaceful enjoyment of possessions. For reasons of space, I will not delve into this issue too much; instead I will simply acknowledge the ECHR point and continue to explain the mechanics of the scheme.

Any regulations for a RCA must also be preceded by a consultation, involving the relevant local authority and also “persons who appear to Scottish Minsters to represent the interests of tenants and landlords under relevant tenancies of properties in the proposed rent control area”. This consultation, which must run for at least eight weeks, is to relate to the geographical scope of the RCA and both the form and the level of the rent increase restriction being considered for the proposed RCA (see below). There is then to be a further report to the Scottish Parliament, setting out Ministers’ reasoning and describing the consultation.

The potential effect of a RCA

Any regulations designating an area as a rent control area will last for five years (unless they are somehow revoked prior to their natural expiry), and “must provide that the rent payable under a private residential tenancy of a property in the area that is not an exempt property may not be increased by more than an amount specified in the regulations”. I’ll come back to exempt properties below. In terms of the restrictive amount that is to be specified in such regulations this “may include”:

  • a specified percentage (which may be 0%) (i.e. no increase permitted at all);
  • an amount falling within a specified range, or
  • an amount calculated with reference to one or more specified factors, or other specified criteria (including a formula).

Presumably the amount specified may also include something completely different, provided that is somehow sensible (lest the regulations be subject to judicial review). What is particularly noteworthy though is the express direction in section 9(3)(a) allowing the permitted increase to be 0%; without meaning to patronise anyone, that will indeed mean a rent freeze, as 0% of any existing rent will be zero.

When might we get our first RCA, and what happens in the interim?

Just to give an indication of the timeline for any new RCA, given that any new rent control areas will…

…need the new Bill to pass and be implemented, and…

…that proposed RCA be the subject of an assessment and report by the relevant local authority, which…

…must have considered any guidance issued by Scottish Ministers, and…

…that report be considered by Scottish Ministers, then…

…regulations must be drafted for that RCA, and then…

…those regulations consulted on and in turn reported on, before finally…

…those regulations get passed by the Scottish Parliament (under the affirmative procedure)…

…it is fair to say it will still be a wee while before we get our first actual RCA.

I also think this means it is pretty much a racing certainty that the Cost of Living Act provisions on rent adjudication will have expired before this can all be put in place for any new RCA. (Please drop me a line if you think I am wrong here – I would be happy to be corrected.) That is to say, there will be a period between 31 March 2025 and the implementation of the first RCA whereby any validly served rent increase-notice will only be contestable in line with the 2016 Act regime as enacted. That challenge regime is based on the market, without any caps (unless the landlord themselves narrates a lower than market new rent in the rent-increase notice, as discussed below). Judging by some of the coverage of the new Bill, it seems that non-market interventionists are worried about the dawn of proper rent controls, but there will nevertheless be a chance for existing private landlords to “correct” that market by serving valid rent-increase notices with high-end of the market rate increases before regulation fully bites.

Exempt properties and modified application

There are some important provisions about the properties that are exempt from restrictions or subject to modified restrictions. Section 13 allows Scottish Ministers to define (by regulations) what is an exempt property (i.e. one that will not be affected by an RCA being designated for its neighbourhood). This can be by reference to whatever Scottish Ministers consider appropriate, but with particular reference to: “(a) a description of the circumstances relating to the landlord of the property, (b) a description of the circumstances relating to the tenant of the property, [and] (c) a description of the property according to its type.”

To try to dream up examples, my reading of this is it could allow certain landlords to be carved out of the regime: perhaps actual human beings who only own one property (or at least they only own one property they don’t live in). For a tenant-related circumstance, one immediately thinks about students in full-time education who are not renting directly from their education provider or a purpose-built student accommodation provider (and I stress I am not just saying this because I work in higher education – Gordon Maloney also flagged concerns about this in his Twitter thread). As for descriptions according to property type, this might carve out property above a certain square footage/metreage, or below a certain age.

I’m mainly going to refrain from commenting on the merits of all of this, save to say I am somewhat drawn to the idea of exempting particularly young properties from rent control (or at least leaving the broad parameters of such properties to the planning process rather than rent controls). I say this as one regular critique of rent control is that it might stifle development, or more specifically build-to-rent development, but if you can allow new construction to at least not be disincentivised for any given tenure then housing supply can increase in a suitably balanced way (with presumably a beneficial impact for any locale with such an acute issue that a RCA was deemed necessary, albeit I appreciate this is not an easy topic for a semi-informed amateur like me to veer into).

Anyway, before laying any draft regulations about any exemptions, Scottish Ministers must consult persons who appear to them to represent the interests of tenants and landlords, plus any other person they consider appropriate. One imagines organisations like the National Union of Students will be poised to get involved if their sector is to be affected (as discussed in Maloney’s thread).

Section 14 does something slightly different, by allowing Scottish Ministers (again by regulation) to make provision that would allow landlords of “a specified property” to raise rent in a RCA by more than they would otherwise be able to, either with approval from a suitable vetting body (a rent officer or the First-tier Tribunal are suggested in the Bill) or without the need for any approval, i.e. a (pre-programmed?) top-up increase would be permitted automatically. What could be meant by “a specified property” here tracks what might be an exempted property in terms of section 13 (i.e. defined by reference to landlord or tenant circumstances, or the property type).

Ongoing matters for RCAs

The RCA provisions set out the Scottish Ministers’ duty to keep any activated RCAs under review and react promptly to vary or revoke the terms of a RCA when they are of the view that rent controls are no longer necessary or proportionate (section 11). Where a variation rather than an outright revocation is proposed, this is to be consulted on (with similar parameters to the consultation that would have originated the RCA) (section 12).

Section 18 allows Scottish Ministers to act on or in anticipation of the expiry of any RCA, to cater for any increases that any (self-interested, capitalist) landlord will (entirely rationally) be keen to make. Such regulations can last for up to a year after the expiry of the RCA, and can relate to the method by which a landlord may increase the rent payable and any review or appeal(s) pertaining to such an increase.

The other relevant RCA provisions that are in included in the Bill (at sections 15-17) relate to “Power to seek information from landlords and tenants”. This allows a local authority to quiz any registered landlord in relation to any house that they have logged on the landlord register about matters such as the rent payable under any tenancy, the date and amount of the previous rent increase (if any), and details about the let property (such as the number of bedrooms, the floor area, and whether it is detached, semi-detached, terraced or flatted). A local authority may also request such information from a person with a right to live in any registered house by virtue of a lease.

A landlord’s failure to provide relevant information after a request, or the provision of false information, can ultimately lead to a fine of £1,000.

The tenant escapes any penalty regime here: I am content with the idea of not penalising tenants for not responding to requests, but it might stick in the craw a bit if they get to provide false information without penalty (albeit in some circumstances a tenant’s dishonest statement could theoretically amount to a common law fraud).

The mechanics of rent increases in the new landscape

That’s us just about covered Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the Bill. There are two further (much shorter) Chapters of Part 1 to consider. Chapter 2 contains two sections (19 and 20) which amend the provisions of the 2016 Act so as to enable RCAs to operate. Chapter 3 contains rent-related amendments to the 2016 Act that are independent of the RCA provisions. For better or for worse, this means the RCA creation provisions will be in the new Bill when it is passed, but the mechanics of how a RCA operates for any given private residential tenancy are amended into the 2016 Act.

It is worth mentioning one reform that applies across all PRTs, whether in a RCA or otherwise. The structure of the amending provisions means that there is some duplication, but there is a mirror effect and I’ll flag it at the outset of this coverage for ease.

The standard rule for PRTs is that there can only be one increase per year. A quirk in the 2016 Act as introduced meant this annual rent increase could be instigated at any time after the commencement of the tenancy. This was because the statute was silent as to when a rent-increase notice could be served on a new tenant. With each new tenancy being looked at in isolation, any new tenant receiving a rent-increase notice in the first twelve months could not say the service of such a notice was contrary to statute. Theoretically, at least, a rent-increase notice (with the statutory minimum notice period of three months) could be served very quickly indeed on a new tenant, and that tenant would then face the prospect of accepting or challenging a rent-increase notice. New provisions remove this quirk for tenancies in all circumstances (in terms of new section 43G and an amended section 19 of the 2016 Act).

There are also similar but separate provisions to provide that any figure proposed by a landlord in a rent-increase notice is to serve as a high watermark. This would be relevant where: (a) there is a RCA but the landlord has undershot (that is to say, they have not accounted for every permissible penny of rent in their rent-increase notice); and (b) where there is no RCA and the landlord has made a below market suggestion for the new rent. I’ll return to these in their individual contexts below.

The new RCA-specific provisions

Section 19 of the Bill inserts a new Part 4A into the into the 2016 Act. This section is headed “Setting and variation of rent”, and the combined effect of new sections 43A-43T does indeed deal with two rent control area scenarios, namely (a) the permissible initial rent for a new PRT in a RCA, and (b) rent-increases for PRTs that are ticking along there. The heading of the new Part 4A is worth mentioning to explain it is indeed focussed on RCAs: “RENT: PROPERTIES IN A RENT CONTROL AREA (OTHER THAN EXCLUDED PROPERTIES).

In basic terms, the first half of this regime removes the significance of a break in the tenancy (i.e. the existing tenant(s) moving out and the new tenant(s) moving in). It does this by contemplating two situations where a property has been previously let (see new section 43E).

First, if there has been a rent increase in the 12 months immediately before the start of the current tenancy, the initial rent under cannot be more than the rent that was payable when the immediately preceding tenancy came to an end. Where there was no such increase, the new rent can be more than the final rent under the immediately preceding tenancy, but only where that higher amount could have been reached by a valid increase in the given RCA taking that outgoing rent as the baseline. Absent these changes, a new let could have been priced by virtue of what the market would allow.

There is provision made for a property to be excluded from this regime (because of a change of ownership and this new let being the first involving a new owner – again, this might assuage any fears of investors being spooked). The wording also clarifies various other matters (e.g. the previous let must have been in the past twelve months, and both the new and the previous let must relate to the same or substantially the same property). Also, any home that is an exempt property in terms of the aforementioned section 13 of the new Bill will indeed be exempted from this regime.

As for rent matters after the initial rent-setting, this all starts at new section 43F of the 2016 Act (which makes the new regime the only way to validly increase rent in a RCA, and signposts to Chapter 2 of the new Part 4A of the 2016 Act). Section 43G then reiterates the standard rule that there can only be one increase per year, but also brings in a couple of innovations to prevent any increase either in (a) the first twelve months of a new tenancy or (b) within twelve months of any preceding tenancy, where such a previous tenancy is (again) essentially chained to the new let, at least as far as the rent level goes. As noted, the innovation about the first twelve months of tenancy is to address the quirk in the 2016 Act as introduced (where one increase per twelve-month period was permitted, but the new lease itself didn’t start that clock running; only the first increase did).

Rent increase in a RCA

The new Section 43J is the first provision of Chapter 2 of Part 4A of the 2016 Act, and this Chapter 2 is the only show in town for rent increases in a RCA. It starts by explaining the landlord under a current tenancy – i.e. a non-exempt tenancy that is ticking over – may increase the rent payable by giving the tenant a valid rent-increase notice, but instantly caveats that by saying the landlord may not increase the rent by more than the permitted amount for the area in which the let property is situated. “Permitted amount” is defined by reference to the relevant regulations as the maximum amount for any increase in the rent payable under a current tenancy in that area. The notice period for an increase is the usual three months, and there is a referral/application regime where the tenant thinks the rent-increase notice strays above that which is permissible.

If there is to be a referral by a disgruntled tenant, this first stage of the challenge process goes to a rent officer. What happens next depends on the rent increase the landlord has aimed for.

Should the rent officer feel that the landlord has aimed too high, then they must come back down to a suitable level for that RCA. Where the RCA has a zero (or equivalent) permitted increase, they must order the rent-increase notice has no effect. In other circumstances, the rent determined by the rent officer must reflect an increase by the relevant permitted amount (i.e. the maximum level).

Where the landlord has aimed lower than permitted, then that lower stipulated amount is all that can be charged (i.e. the landlord doesn’t get to top things up to the maximum level at this stage). I’ll explain this a bit more below in the context of the capping of rent-increase notices in a non-RCA setting.

The rest of the new Part 4A deals with a variety of other technical/procedural matters that I will simply body-swerve here. The only other thing I will mention is the innovative new duty to include information about rent in “to let” advertisements in a rent control area, which is introduced by section 20 of the Bill (and in turn a new section 17A of the 2016 Act). This brings in further considerations for RCA properties at the time of a new let.

One blanket stipulation for the prospective landlord’s adverts is they must highlight there is indeed a RCA present, so there can be no hiding from that. The next duty depends on whether the property was let in the previous twelve months (subject to an exception where the prospective landlord bought the property with vacant possession and this is their first let of the property). The prospective landlord will then either need to set out details of the rent level of any previous tenancy of the let property by the current owner (and the date of the previous increase) or, where there was no such previous let, set out the prospective new rent. I don’t believe there is a specific sanction provided for not complying with this duty.

Rent increase in normal (non-RCA) circumstances

A couple of quick thoughts for non-RCA properties before I draw this first post to a close. As noted, it is now impossible to raise the rent in the first twelve months of a PRT. Another change is to provide that the figure proposed by a landlord in a rent-increase notice is to serve as a high watermark. Previously, if a tenant challenged a rent-increase notice and the relevant rent-setting official felt that the landlord had lowballed their new rent proposal, they could set an even higher rent than that proposed figure (based on the market). Not anymore. Whether this means landlords start to highball new rent proposals is something that I hope more qualified people than me have thought about, but at the very least this proposal means a tenant can challenge a rent-increase notice and not fear a curveball. Sorry about all the ball chat.

Observations on the Bill’s rent provisions

There is no denying that some of these changes are a bit tricky to get your head around. That being said, there are aspects of them that appear quite neat to me. Tying prices to historic rents in many circumstances avoids the issues around fair rents and comparable properties, which we have seen with previous British rent controls.

Mind you, this scheme replicates aspects of another more recent and ill-fated example, namely RPZs. The fact that local authorities are obliged to consider what is happening with private rentals in their area will perhaps mobilise them towards acting a bit more than the original RPZ provisions did, and there are other differences between the frameworks that I probably should sit down and fully make sense of on another occasion that could avert the issues that led to RPZs never working at all. There is a slight possibility that certain issues could be replicated, so we’ll need to watch this space.

I’ll also venture one overall comment about these rent proposals and the effect they might have. Some of the reactions to rent controls have been a tad hyperbolic. This could be part of the cut and thrust of the broad law-making process, where those who wish less regulation seek to get the Bill into a shape that they are happy with. That’s fine and understandable if so. But to lay all of the concerns of the industry at rent controls’ door is, I think, to overplay what these provisions can do in the long-term, and certainly to overplay what they can do in the short-term.

I also think we need to be clear that it is not (just) the Big Bad Bute House Boys* that are causing strain for buy-to-let landlords. It wasn’t the Scottish Government who stopped mortgage interest from being a deductible expense from a landlord’s tax return, thus increasing the tax burden for landlords with secured debt. (That was George Osborne.) It wasn’t the Scottish Government that caused recent volatility in the mortgage markets, with interest rates spiking for buy-to-let landlords on either a variable-rate mortgage product or a maturing fixed-rate mortgage product. It wasn’t the Scottish Government that reworked lettings relief after 2020 in a way that serves up a capital gains tax hit on most landlords seeking to extricate themselves from the market.

But… It was the Scottish Government that tweaked the repairing standard as of March this year (meaning landlords to think about lead pipes serving let properties and, for those with properties making use of a shared access, ensure there are suitably secure but internally released doors in common areas). This is not to say such changes are without a sensible basis (in terms of occupier safety), it’s just it could be an extra straw on a landlord’s back, and it is never clear which straw might cause the eventual breakage. It was also the Scottish Government that (in 2017) changed the rules around “no fault” evictions (which England is still wrestling with in relation to its Renters Reform Bill). Given that “no fault” change offered some sure-footedness in their home to private renters complying with the terms of their lease, this is not exactly something I am minded to criticise, but there is no denying that wider changes like that are all relevant to the landlord/tenant balancing act. There is also no denying this is a difficult balance to strike. We’ve only been trying to do it for over a hundred years (some of which is touched on in a recent paper by Peter Robson and me (available on Westlaw with a subscription – open access available later this year when the embargo is lifted)).

Also, the Scottish Government’s record on house-building – like the record of other governments in the UK – can rightly be commented on. As I say though, these rent provisions need not strangle new build-to-rent developments at birth, so let’s at least acknowledge that. I’ll also leave any full critique of house building levels for someone else to cover another day.

That concludes the substance this first Housing Bill blog post. I alluded to evictions two paragraphs ago. That’s the topic I’ll return to in the next post, to consider what Part 2 of the new Bill says around a new duty for a court or tribunal to delay an eviction, and the not quite new provisions around damages for unlawful evictions.

*A footnote about my asterisk above

I went with “Big Bad Bute House Boys” for semi-alliteration. I appreciate it was actually Shirley-Anne Somerville who introduced the new Bill, supported by Patrick Harvie and Paul McLennan.

A drafting aside (and a correction by me)

In the first version of this blog post I included a comment on one of the minor and consequential amendments from the Schedule to this Bill. Paragraph 6 inserts a new section 17B into the 2016 Act and I had initially thought that within that inserted section there was a repeal of another bit of the 2016 Act. This seemed a bit weird, and it would indeed have been weird if this is what was happening (as you would not normally leave evidence of a repeal in the modified living instrument). I now realise I misread the extent of the new section 17B (I’ll blame the formatting of the PDF of the Bill) so that critique, such as it was, flies away (because the repealing provision is indeed squarely within the new Bill); there may be a separate critique of the presentation of this, albeit that critique is a much milder one (and the main critique is probably of me for missing a closing quotation mark to reflect where the new section 17B ended). I updated this blog post to reflect all of this on the day of publication.

About basedrones

Bachelor of Laws. Scots academic lawyer. English law qualified. Took far too long to write this bio. Blogs on legal issues, with occasional veering into other purportedly intellectual stuff from time to time. Tweets about legal issues, education, law clinics, fitba, music, rogue cell division and not at all about politics at @MalcolmCombe.
This entry was posted in Homelessness, Residential Tenancies and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to The new Housing (Scotland) Bill: some initial thoughts, with particular reference to rent and rent control areas

  1. Pingback: The new Housing (Scotland) Bill: some thoughts on its eviction provisions | basedrones

  2. Pingback: The new Housing (Scotland) Bill: some thoughts on tenant personalisation of the let property (by way of pets and alterations), plus other eclectic matters | basedrones

  3. Pingback: The new Housing (Scotland) Bill: some thoughts on its homelessness provisions | basedrones

Leave a comment