Private Residential Accommodation

Abstract

Although this is the area of law most frequently associated with landlord and tenant in the mind of the lay person, it has come to affect a dwindling number of people — in spite of attempts by successive governments to stimulate the sector. The first Rent Act (known as the Rent and Mortgage (Temporary Restrictions) Act) was passed in 1915 in an attempt to control Glasgow landlords raising rents to exploit the increased wages of munitions workers. The Act may have succeeded in its aim, but it began a process of decline which can be traced thereafter through various pieces of apparently temporary (due more to the presence of that word in the short title than real intent) legislation and then subsequently into the Rent Acts. Since 1945, these Acts have, variously, removed security and rent control (in 1957), replaced it (in 1965), extended it to most lettings without resident landlords (in 1974), and attempted to stimulate the sector by creating special types of tenancies whose occupants would not have full, or any, security (in 1980). The different philosophies behind the various Acts have all been unsuccessful in halting the decline of the private sector from 90 per cent of total stock in 1914 to 8 per cent in 1991. The present occupiers of this smallest segment of British housing are likely to be older and/or on a low income. In addition, their accommodation is likely to be in a poor state of disrepair (privately rented dwellings account for almost one third of all unfit homes and one third of homes lacking one or more basic amenities).