Slade Green and Northend Labour Cllrs

I see the nonsense “rent controls are back” takes keep coming. There is no rent control in England. The legal right to challenge rent increases at tribunal was introduced by the Thatcher Government in its 1988 Housing Act. It was rarely used in practice only because it inevitably resulted in a landlord serving a Section 21 notice. Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act abolished Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and renters are now rightly empowered to challenge unfair or above-market rent increases. In both the recent cases that have been the cause of so much debate, the tribunal has been operating exactly as it should – determining that the landlords in question were charging rents that simply did not reflect local market values for comparable properties.