Renting Homes in Wales
Description:... Renting homes: the final report, (2006, Cm. 6781, ISBN 9780101678124) set out the Law Commission's detailed recommendations for the reform of the law relating to residential rented housing. Volume 2 of that report was a draft Bill putting those recommendations into statutory form. At the core of the recommendations is the creation of a straightforward and simplified statutory framework which: (1) reduces the number of available forms of rental occupation of residential property to two - the secure contract and the standard contract; and (2) provides model contracts which set out the basis on which occupiers occupy rented housing in clear terms. There was little enthusiasm for implementation of the recommendations from the Westminster Government. Its housing policy priorities at that stage were focused on extending owner occupation rather than reforming residential renting. There was more interest from the Welsh Assembly Government. In November 2007, the then Welsh Minister for Housing accepted the recommendations in principle, for implementation in Wales if the legislative competence necessary to do so became available. This did happen in March 2011, when the provisions of Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 were brought into force, Whilst the Renting Homes recommendations were designed as far as possible to maintain the current balance of rights and responsibilities between landlords and occupiers, the development of the proposals inevitably involved some modifications to the status quo. This review highlights the most significant of these modifications, and, where these have proved controversial, explains the reasoning
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