Protected Tenants Whats The Point

[tim123]

I think there are different levels of protection. Say 6 month contracts are the least protected, and I believe there is extra protection that kicks in after 3 years..

You believe wrong.

ALL tenancies (except business and holiday rentals) entered into before some date in the 70's (possibly even in the 80's) are what is now legally known as "protected tenancies" (I'm not sure if that was the name that they had at the time or the name given to them when unprotected tenancies were introduced). It is also possible for tenancies granted in the 80/90s to be protected, if the landlord got the paperwork wrong. It is actually still possible to grant a protected tenancy, if that is what the landlord wants to do.

Protected tenants cannot be given notice, except in a very small set of circumstances, which must be presented to a court for validation (not the correct legal term). They can have their rent increased, sometimes to a market rent, and sometimes not (and that's a whole new discussion).

There is now no mechanism by which a current tenancy can become protected if that wasn't the intention at the outset.

IMO, the UK laws are very landlord biased - I can appreciate if this is the case for short term contracts like 3 months or 6 months, but any long term residence should have a lot more safeguards than it currently has.

That's because when they were tenant biased, no one was prepared to be a landlord. I agree that there are some faults with the current system, but they mainly come about because of the actions of rental agents who seem to be allowed to work in no-one's interest but their own (and that's a whole new discussion). Personally, (having experienced the alternative) I believe that most of the problems come about because of the rule forbidding agents from charging tenants "finding fees" (in the mistaken belief that this means that they won't be paying one).

tim

[NotAllThere]

When I rented a house in the late 90s, the letting agency intially charged me an "admin fee" - to cover credit checks etc. Six months later, we renewed the contract, and they tried to charge me another admin fee. I read the contracts carefully, and then wrote to the agency explaining that I had no contract with them, and therefore they could whistle for the admin fee. I got a letter from them a week or so later saying that they'd agreed with the landlord to waive the fee.

As soon as we could, the landlord and I went direct.