The Government has no means of assessing the potential impact of the Renters’ Rights Act on the rent appeals system, after confirming it does not hold data on how long the Tribunal currently takes to process and rule on rent increase challenges.
The information was disclosed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) response to David Smith, a property lawyer and partner at Spector, Constant and Williams.
Despite the Act encouraging tenants to challenge any proposed rent increase above local market levels, the Ministry of Justice admitted it does not collect even basic performance metrics for the Tribunal.
From 1st May next year, every private renter will be entitled to refer a proposed rent rise to the Tribunal if they believe it exceeds local market rates.
In practice, the only way to determine whether an increase is above market value will be for tenants to lodge a case, increasing the likelihood of a surge in appeals.
Tenants face no financial downside in doing so.
Cases are free to bring, the Tribunal cannot increase the proposed rent beyond the landlord’s original figure, and any approved rise only takes effect from the date of the Tribunal’s decision.
This could delay increases by months. The Tribunal can also defer rent rises for up to two months to avoid undue hardship.
The Government has said it may introduce backdating of Tribunal-approved rent increases if the system becomes “overwhelmed”, but it has not defined what “overwhelmed” means.
The FOI response confirmed it lacks the baseline data required to identify such a point.
Commenting on the Government’s response, David Smith said: “It is simply bizarre that the Government is failing to collect basic data on the performance of the rental appeals Tribunal.
“For all its talk of not wanting the system to be overwhelmed, without measuring the average time taken to process rent cases both now and in the future there will be no way of knowing the impact the Renters’ Rights Act is actually having and what additional resources are required by the Tribunal to operate effectively.
“If ministers are serious about wanting their reforms to work, they need urgently to measure, and publish in full, baseline data on the performance of the Tribunal now. The Government should regularly publish this data to ensure everyone can see if, and when, the Tribunal starts to struggle with the anticipated massive increase in rent appeal cases it is asked to consider.”
