Having your say on “New Deal” consultation

As we reported to members in our final enews before Christmas, the Scottish Government is currently consulting on a draft rented sector strategy to cover the next five years. The strategy entitled “A New Deal for Tenants” aims to give tenants more secure, stable and affordable tenancies with improved standards of accommodation and more flexibility to personalise their homes.

The consultation document is lengthy, seeking views on a large variety of topics including allowing tenants to keep pets, redecorate properties and exit joint tenancies more easily. Consideration is given to banning evictions during winter months, requiring landlords to submit data on rent levels and introducing a national system of rent controls. Views are also sought on the PRT eviction grounds and how the PRT regime could be amended to encourage landlords to rent to students.

We encourage all members to read the consultation paper and, where they have strong views or experiences which are relevant to a particular question, submit a response. It is not necessary to respond to every question; you can focus on those you feel most strongly about. Responses should be submitted online here by 15 April 2022. Please do share your response with us by emailing it to policy@scottishlandlords.com.

SAL will be hosting a series of webinars over the coming weeks to discuss aspects of the consultation with members and seek their views. Details of these webinars will be published in due course. We will also be conducting member surveys shortly to gather data to include in our response – look out for these which will be emailed to you soon and please do respond if you can. SAL will be submitting a response to the consultation and we will share this with members well before the response deadline of 15 April 2022.