Rental Housing: the current legal framework in England

Caroline Hunter / Jed Meers

Keywords

Residential tenancies; England; precarity.

Abstract

Residential tenancies law in England are complex because of an over-lay of (changing) legislation on the top of common law principles, and sometimes different law for private and social tenants. In this article we use a framework of legal determinants of housing precarity to analyse this law. There are five determinants to our analysis: tenure/time; control; cost; conditions (habitability); and immigration status. The difficulties occupiers and landlords face in untangling the patchwork of protections unites these different determinants. Further we demonstrate that the position of tenants has become in some ways more precarious in the last 30 years – in terms of the ease of eviction and, for private tenants, for rents.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Tenure/time
2.1Protection from eviction
2.2 Private rented tenancies
2.3 Social rented tenancies
2.4 Right to succession 
3. Control
4. Costs
5. Conditions (habitability)
6. Immigration
7. Conclusion
Bibliography
Case references