Many landlords will be aware that on the 6th September 2022, the First Minister for Scotland announced an immediate ban on rent increases and evictions in the Scottish rental market.
This ban has been introduced by the Scottish Government to support tenants through the cost-of-living crisis and is part of the programme to make a “stronger and more resilient Scotland”. The programme outlines emergency legislation which will be implemented until the 31st March 2023 and puts in place freezes on rent increases and evictions.
Rent Increase
As part of the programme an immediate ban was introduced to prevent landlords or agents issuing rent increase notices to tenants during the period 6th September 2022 until 31st March 2023. It remains to be seen if this is extended beyond 31st March.
In practice this means rent increase notices cannot be issued to tenants currently residing in a property, however, it does not mean that you cannot set the rent at a higher level between tenancies. There is no guidance, as yet, to confirm the position with rent increase notices issued prior to 6th September.
Evictions
The second part of the programme is the moratorium introduced to prevent evictions. Again there is no clear detail and, as yet, we are still unclear how to interpret it. There is an expectation that it may follow the COVID emergency legislation but no confirmation has been received to confirm this.
If the COVID emergency legislation is implemented, and again there is no clarification, the ban is not on serving the notice to leave, the ban is on evicting the tenant. So it could follow the same process that the landlord can serve the notice to leave and if the tenant vacates at the due date, this would be seen as a mutually agreed end to the tenancy and an eviction was not required. However, as there is no clarity around the proposed legislation, this may not be the case and it could be that the ban will include serving the notice to leave.
It could be that landlords can serve notice to leave and, as all evictions are currently discretionary, the tenant could apply to the First Tier Tribunal for a “reasonableness test”. If the FTT finds in favour of the landlord, the eviction notice could be granted but the landlord is unable to enforce it. We just don’t know. It may even be that FTT suspend applications from tenants and only deal with a small number of referrals such as when the property has been abandoned by the tenants.
Until we have the detail from Scottish Government we are only second guessing. We are looking at past legislation and wondering how much of it will be repurposed. As business at the Scottish Parliament is currently suspended follow the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, we do not expect any further details immediately. In the mean-time, best advice to landlords is to err on the side of caution and don’t take any steps which you may need to back-track on when the detail becomes clear.