Private sector tenants ‘need stronger safeguards’

A government-backed report into the housing market says statutory regulation ‘lacks logical consistency’ and needs to be reformed and rationalised. The private rented sector was found to have the ‘highest degree of consumer dissatisfaction’ and regulations are too complex for tenants to understand. Among its recommendations the report argues there is a strong case for the introduction of a universal redress scheme for tenants that would require shorthold assured tenants to be safeguarded against eviction while complaints are investigated, and for tighter regulation of sale and rent back schemes.