Landlords urged to tread carefully as high-end rental market hit by tenancy confusion
New tenancy legislation could create “courtroom minefields”, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) has warned.
The RLA’s warning comes after the annual rent threshold for common “assured shorthold tenancies” was raised from £25,000 to £100,000 last week. The change is backdated to include all existing tenancies as well as new ones. This means thousands of higher-end properties in England must now comply with the tenancy deposit protection schemes.
The RLA says that landlords with unregistered deposits taken after 6 April 2007 for properties with an annual rent of up to £100,000 may be breaking the law. By law, deposits must be registered with a tenancy protection scheme within 14 days of receipt.
Alan Ward, RLA chairman, says that all of these issues could cause courtroom minefields.
“And any actions currently going through the courts to terminate a tenancy could be relying on the wrong notices because the tenancy agreements have now, in the meantime, officially become assured shorthold tenancies.”
The Department for Communities and Local Government
