Oct 12 2018 09:59:00
Some 60% of tenants support the introduction of compulsory three-year tenancies, it has been revealed.
The figure comes from a poll of 1,000 tenants conducted by rent recognition platform CreditLadder ahead of a decision by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government within a few weeks.
This announcement is likely to endorse the idea of compulsory three-year tenancies following recent enthusiasm from Theresa May about the proposals, and wider attempts to make the housing market ‘fairer’.
The government recently completed a consultation on the proposals which received representations from 8,000 industry and consumer representatives.
“Many landlords have said that tenants are just as interested in flexibility within their tenancy as they are security, but our research would indicate the opposite,” says Sheraz Dar, CEO of CreditLadder.co.uk.
“Although some tenants do prefer the flexible nature of the current Assured Shorthold Tenancy contracts common in the marketplace, being safer in the knowledge that they can’t be evicted for three years as long as they pay their rent on time and behave appropriately is more popular.”
But three-year tenancies aren’t going down so well with landlords. A poll published yesterday revealed that a third of them would be less likely to purchase more properties if longer and compulsory tenancies were introduced, and that they would be impractical for students and some migrant workers.
Paragon, which was one of the first lenders to update its mortgage terms to include longer tenancies, said it also would be bad news for younger couples and sharers.
This is because landlords told Paragon that they would be more likely to chase safer tenants such as older couples, retired people and older single people follow if three-year tenancies were to be introduced.