2. Introduction by Dan Channer
The Private Rental Sector has come of age. PRS has increased in absolute
size and in terms of households it accommodates.
Approximately 1 million more people renting than 5 years ago. In 2007
about 13% of UK households were renting, now its almost 17%
Some forecasters believe in ’20 by 20 – that’s 20% of the country renting by
2020
As a result of this growth a Select Committee of 10 cross bench MPs have
written a report on how to “improve” the rental sector
Some of these ideas will be discussed by the panel.

5. Does the Sector need fixing?
• There is currently no legislation to regulate the
operations of letting agents. While 60% of landlords are
members of regulatory schemes, 35% operate in their
own stead. This places risk on the tenants and landlords.
• The huge growth in the private sector has added
pressure on the model, which has not experienced this
level since pre WW2– a new management model is
needed to accommodate this rapid growth.

6. Enforcement of Legislation
•The enforcement of legislation and landlord regulation
is a complex and highly debated issue with the panel,
whom were not able to reach a consensus or prescribe
a exact formula for how this may be implemented.
•The panel agreed that any prescriptive formula would
have to be extremely carefully thought through – Giles
Peaker argued that even an extremely complex model
would inevitably have cracks, loopholes, category errors
and overlaps.

7. Licensing of Landlords
•Finders Keepers’ Landlord survey discovered that a large
majority of Landlords surveyed were in support of landlord
licensing.
•Concern this is just additional red tape rather than a
conscientious effort to improve landlord standards.
•Increasing overall cost of renting with virtually no real
benefit to tenants or landlords.
•How do we regulate?

8. Tenancy duration
•The panel agreed that the private sector benefited from
its flexibility and any interference such as giving tenants
the right to demand longer leases would reduce flexibility
and supply.
•A panel member suggested that allowing tenants to
request a longer tenancy would enable greater stability,
but not enforcing a set time would maintain the flexibility
within the private rented sector that many tenants value.

9. Rent Caps or Predictable rents
• The Select Committee has argued for predictable rent increases.
This is in conflict with the statement made by the Housing Minister
to not cap rent prices.
• Tunke Ekpe suggested that the market should be left to make the
prices decisions – there are numerous factors which affect the rental
price which can not be accounted for the broad instrument that is a
level cap.
• Christopher Hamer argued for predictable rents in place of caps,
which would provide stability for tenants without the rigidity
associated with caps, he also believes that rental caps could have
negative knock on effect on other areas of the market.
• Another concern raised was that caps would create an incentive for
landlords to end tenancies rather than renew.

10. Rent Caps or Predictable rents
• The Select Committee has argued for predictable rent increases.
This is in conflict with the statement made by the Housing Minister
to not cap rent prices.
• Tunke Ekpe suggested that the market should be left to make the
prices decisions – there are numerous factors which affect the rental
price which can not be accounted for the broad instrument that is a
level cap.
• Christopher Hamer argued for predictable rents in place of caps,
which would provide stability for tenants without the rigidity
associated with caps, he also believes that rental caps could have
negative knock on effect on other areas of the market.
• Another concern raised was that caps would create an incentive for
landlords to end tenancies rather than renew.