the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
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@whitequark @exec yeah.
plus we have all that other stuff like landlords are allowed to enter the property 4 times a year to inspect and take photos/video that it's being kept clean to their own standard.and not allowed to put anything on the walls without landlord permission (yes, including those 3M commander strip hooks)
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark from when are these changes effective?
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@whitequark from when are these changes effective?
@Psychonaut August 2025
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@exec an agent suggested I do this like it's the most normal fucking thing with a straight face. I could not believe my ears
@whitequark @exec sounds like the most USA brained shit ever, i'm really surprised there's an aspect of unhinged capitalism that's actually UK/Commonwealth exclusive o.0
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@RejoinEU this is probably the one good thing they've done. the mis-steps are the norm, doing something right is the exception
(and i think a lot of this bill is based on the bill of their predecessors, too)
@whitequark @RejoinEU that’s why I’m still voting Green at the next election
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@NormanDunbar @krans @RejoinEU oh the bishops are gone??
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark Met these lovely folks through Job #3 - lots of useful info for renters, landlords and campaigners:
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark I'm still happily amazed that passed, given how many MPs are landlords. Such an improvement
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@RejoinEU this is probably the one good thing they've done. the mis-steps are the norm, doing something right is the exception
(and i think a lot of this bill is based on the bill of their predecessors, too)
@whitequark @RejoinEU The Employee Rights Act is also a huge step forward, which has been largely ignored for reasons I don't understand.
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark @purplepadma When was rental bidding a thing?
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark
The thing is, these are all things that any reasonable/normal/kind landlord would be doing anyway. But reasonable/normal/kind landlords are rare it seems, so legislation is needed!Letting Agents are to blame for a lot of bad treatment of tenants - encouraging landlords to maximise profits and be ruthless. A friend who rents out a house thinks they will have to sell because of this law, but we pointed out that they wouldn't want to do any of the things it makes illegal anyway.
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@exec @whitequark rent bidding has started becoming the norm here in Australia ;_;
wanted to ask about UK/EU stuff tho, how many months notice for landlords ending a rolling contract?
here fixed term is standard and we (tenants) preferred it because it at least gave you 12-24 months of stability at same rent rather than them giving 2-month notice to end so they could relist it at a price higher than they could increase your rent by
@az @exec @whitequark everything's different by state, naturally; e.g. soliciting rent bidding is illegal in the ACT (maybe VIC too as of recently? don't remember)
in fact, this UK list is pretty similar to the list of protections the ACT brought in a few years ago, which have been great. hopefully the rest follow suit (as I think VIC did recently)
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the UK has had some new legislation enacted which improves renters' rights [initially with England; housing is a devolved matter] by a lot:
- there are no more fixed rental contracts; everything is done on a rolling basis with a generous multiple-month notice
- no-fault evictions are gone
- after an eviction without reason landlords couldn't re-list it as a rental property for a year
- rent can be increased once a year with a 2-month notice
- rent increases can be challenged by a tenant
- "rental bidding" where you try to give the landlord a higher price than other tenants is made illegal (this was the single biggest WTF moment i had arriving to the UK)
- pets must be accepted by default, unless there is a good reason not to ("I don't want to" is not a good reason)
hell yeah.
@whitequark oh my! I had forgotten this lot was still progressing, I think I'd just assumed it was never going to happen. Great news!
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@Psychonaut August 2025
@whitequark @Psychonaut the law was passed last year but most (?) of the changes actually take effect next month https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69bc04b8f7b1c24d8e23ce60/The_Renters__Rights_Act_Information_Sheet_2026.pdf
(Landlords are currently being very normal about this by evicting everyone before the deadline)
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@whitequark @purplepadma When was rental bidding a thing?
@BenCotterill @whitequark @purplepadma it was a thing for many years for me before I bought a house and many of my friends still have had to deal with it. The price advertised becomes the minimum and you were asked to put how much you’d be willing to pay and the highest bidder would get it.
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@whitequark @Psychonaut the law was passed last year but most (?) of the changes actually take effect next month https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69bc04b8f7b1c24d8e23ce60/The_Renters__Rights_Act_Information_Sheet_2026.pdf
(Landlords are currently being very normal about this by evicting everyone before the deadline)
@russss @whitequark first in the queue for the guillotines
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@exec an agent suggested I do this like it's the most normal fucking thing with a straight face. I could not believe my ears
@whitequark @exec I didn't really know about it either - now I'm wondering if that's what happened to a couple of places in the past which we were close to getting...
Also the no-pets thing seems almost universal - surprised that is in there!
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