AT THE end of last year, after months of waiting, the Scottish Parliament finally voted the Housing Bill through Stage 1. This has not been an easy journey. Living Rent members have spent years lobbying politicians and putting in the groundwork for this Bill and it is a great step forward to see this go through to the next stage. 

As it stands, the Bill creates powers for the introduction of new rent control areas, in which rent increases would be capped. The proposed legislation is by no means perfect, as it does not cover social rents and relies on a flawed formula for setting limits on rent increases. However, in a welcome change from the emergency rent protections in place between 2022 and 2024, the highest permissible rent on a new tenancy would be determined by the rent paid by the previous tenants.  

This is huge for tenants as it will prevent landlords evicting tenants under dubious grounds only to hike up the rent. But crucially it will also ensure that rent increases are kept to a more affordable level. Gone will be the days of between tenancy increases of 40-50 per cent. The danger of rent controls applying only within a tenancy were most starkly demonstrated in the last two years.

During the previous emergency rent protections, increases were capped — first at 0 per cent and then later at 3 per cent — only within tenancies. However, new market rents did increase in that time and significantly. For instance, Glasgow saw new market rents increase by 22.2 per cent in November 2023 when the rent cap was at 3 per cent.

Importantly, these increases only impacted new tenants as people remaining in their flats were protected and were only marginally higher than increases across the rest of the UK. In addition, comparisons between England, Scotland and Wales are difficult because of differing data collection methods. The English and Welsh data take into account all rents (existing and new market rents) whereas Scotland only gathers data on new market rents which are significantly higher than existing ones. 

Bickering about data aside, if landlords are able to raise rents when someone moves out, it gives them more reason to evict tenants. While Scotland has rightly scrapped no-fault evictions, it is still far too easy for landlords to end tenancies. The burden of proof for landlords to use existing grounds for eviction, such as the intent to sell, is so low, and the difficulty for tenants to contest these so high, that no-fault evictions are still, in effect, far too common. Our members’ stories demonstrate this is still reality.

“Janine,” a full-time nursing student in Glasgow who has school-age children, was evicted after 10 years in her home. The landlord’s grounds for eviction was that he was going to refurbish the property and then move in himself. The tenants, however, would have no way of knowing whether this actually happened yet had to go through a traumatic eviction process. The family are now separated, staying with friends or in temporary accommodation.

Joint tenants were particularly affected, as they faced stark trade-offs because if one tenant moved out, the landlords could start a new tenancy and charge as much rent as they liked.

“Alice,” a tenant in Glasgow, lived in a three-bedroom flat for the last two years. When one of her flatmates wanted to move out in April 2023, the landlord refused to assign the tenancy to a new flatmate. Instead, he wanted them to sign a completely new tenancy and hike up the rent by 35 per cent to £2,100, an increase of £540 per month. He told them that this is “market rate” and that they had been lucky to pay less before. The increase was a huge stress for all the tenants, who worked in low-paid jobs, and ended up having to leave their home.

Just as the loophole encourages landlords to force tenants out, it discourages tenants from moving, even when they need to. “Rory” tried to leave his joint tenancy in Edinburgh to move to Glasgow, but the landlord would not let him leave the contract by himself and his former tenant would not agree to end the tenancy due to the fear of a rent increase. As a result he was forced to pay over £1,000 in rent for two homes which completely drained him financially, leaving him living paycheque to paycheque.

Even worse, the loophole can lock tenants into dangerous housing situations. Women’s Aid’s Domestic Abuse Report in 2020, titled “The Hidden Housing Crisis,” noted the crucial barrier that housing costs represent to women considering leaving situations of domestic abuse. In one survey, 68.4 per cent of respondents who were still in a relationship with an abusive partner cited concerns around future housing options as a barrier to leaving.

Those stories powerfully illustrate how rent controls which only apply to single tenancies are ineffective at keeping rents down, and run the risks of incentivising landlords to evict tenants by any means possible and trapping tenants in unsuitable accommodation or worse dangerous situations.

The Housing Bill is currently at the amendments stage. The landlord lobby is pouring thousands of pounds campaigning against rent controls, especially this crucial in-between tenancy clause. A fifth of MSPs are landlords themselves and some MSPs want to remove the clause which specifies limits on increases would carry over between tenancies.

We can’t let them water down tenants’ protections. As Living Rent, Scotland’s tenants’ and community union, we are fighting tooth and nail to combat the landlords’ propaganda and speak for the housing system that we need, one that is centred on our ability to have safe, secure and genuinely affordable homes. That comes through the introduction of a proper system of rent controls, that crucially, applies both within and between tenancies.

Aditi Jehangir is national chair of Living Rent.