What the Renters’ Rights Act means for homelessness

After a long, drawn-out process, Section 21 evictions are finally due to be abolished when the Renters’ Rights Bill becomes the Renters’ Rights Act – ie when it passes into law. In this blog, we’ll look back at the journey that led us here, the role we've played, and what’s going to happen next. 

What led to the Renters’ Rights Act?

Since 1988, private landlords have been able to evict tenants without giving any reason via Section 21 – sometimes called ‘no-fault’ evictions, pushing thousands into homelessness over the years. You can find out more in a blog post from last year, Everything you need to know about Section 21 evictions. 

Around 2017, Section 21 evictions began to get more and more attention, and it became clear that they were a problem. A study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted just how many such evictions were taking place, and the next year it was reported that they might be the leading cause of homelessness in England. 

A lot of campaigning helped to put it on the political agenda, leading to a government consultation and eventually a commitment from the government (in 2019) to ban Section 21. After years of delays, the government introduced the Renters (Reform) Bill to Parliament in 2023, which would get rid of Section 21, increase local authorities’ powers to take on criminal landlords, and establish a dedicated Private Rented Sector Ombudsman and database of private landlords, among other things. You can find out more about this process, and what the bill entailed, in a blog post from two years ago. 

Unfortunately, the bill then experienced even more delays, and key provisions like the Section 21 ban were steadily watered down.

Eventually, the Renters (Reform) Bill ‘died’ due to the 2024 General Election taking place – although by this point it was so watered down, proposing to delay the ban on Section 21 indefinitely and trap tenants in tenancies for the first six months, for example, that many organisations who had initially supported it had started opposing it. 

Following the 2024 election, the new government promised that Section 21 would be banned rapidly and introduced their own (similarly-named) Renters’ Rights Bill in September 2024. Over the last year, there have been some delays, but the bill has been able to make its way through both the House of Commons and House of Lords. Although a number of attempts were made to weaken it in the Lords, the government stood firm on most of its key elements. 

The bill is due to receive ‘Royal Assent’ imminently. This means that it will go from being the Renters’ Rights Bill to the Renters’ Rights Act, and the measures it contains will become law. 

Glass Door Homeless Charity and the Renters’ Rights Act

We have advocated for an end to Section 21 for years, writing to MPs and using every available online platform to bring attention to the issue. We also submitted evidence to a number of the consultations that led to the Renters (Reform) Bill, including one from the Public Accounts Committee, one from the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and one from (what was then called) the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. 

In November 2024, we decided to partner with the Renters’ Reform Coalition, which is made up of 19 leading housing organisations, in order to campaign even more effectively and with a louder voice. 

Our position has been consistent: that Section 21 must be banned as soon as possible, with no watering down or extra loopholes.

We have also made the case that when it comes to giving councils additional enforcement powers (eg to punish criminal landlords), it must be accompanied by additional resources in order to be meaningful – as right now, it is money that is limiting councils’ enforcement, not a lack of powers on paper.  

As we have made clear all along, we do not believe that banning Section 21 or improving renters’ rights alone would fix the housing crisis - this requires more drastic action such as significantly expanding the supply of social housing. Nonetheless, reforming the rental market can make a meaningful, positive impact, and for this reason we strongly support the Renters’ Rights Act. 

What happens now?

Even once the Act is in place, the banning of Section 21 will not happen immediately, and it will likely not be until some point in 2026 that it comes into effect. Once this happens, tenants will have more security and be less likely to fall into homelessness. Over time, there could also be impacts on the quality of accommodation. This is because currently, lots of private renters are afraid to complain about poor conditions for fear that they will be evicted if they do, but the Section 21 ban could give them more confidence to do so. 

However, there is one glaring issue that will not be changed much: sky-high, unaffordable rents.

Ever-rising housing costs are a huge driver of homelessness, and unless something is done to address this, it will continue to be a significant problem.

After all, as our friends at the Renters’ Reform Coalition often point out, an extremely large rent increase that the tenant cannot afford is, in practice, no different from an eviction. 

We welcome the positive step forward that the Renters’ Rights Act represents, but urge the government not to stop there, and to build on this success by pushing forward boldly with policies to improve affordability.