The government's Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has said that its white paper on rental reform, which was part of a 2019 manifesto promise, has been delayed yet again. The further delay of publication from this autumn until 2022, comes as the creators of the report are given extra time to develop a balanced set of reform proposals.

Published on 13 October, the third and final part of the government’s Household Resilience Study explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected people’s housing circumstances in England. While there are no shock revelations, the research does shed further light on ‘hidden’ issues like the ongoing arrears problem in the private rented sector. 

Following months of pressure from various bodies representing landlords and tenants, the UK government has provided new funding for local authorities across England to support tenants who have fallen into arrears due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The £65 million fund will be allocated via local councils to ensure vulnerable people living in rental accommodation will not end up homeless this winter due to financial problems related to the pandemic.

The Government has published its outline for improving energy efficiency in the UK's stock of private rental sector (PRS) homes as part of a commitment to improve the energy performance certificate (EPC) rating to Band C by 2030. However, the expectations for new rental properties to have a Band C EPC by 2025 and all properties to have the same by 2028 - excluding exemptions - has been described as unachievable by ARLA Propertymark.

While the property sales boom has been one of the surprise success stories of the past year and a half, the overall strength of the rental market has been less clear. Reports and news stories have tended to focus on particular issues like arrears or evictions, rather than getting a sense of whether the private rented sector is in a better or worse position than it was in 2019. However, a few recent studies have tried to shed a bit of light on this. 

The UK government has extended temporary rules allowing Letting Agents to conduct Right to Rent checks via video rather than in person, from May 17 to June 20, 2021.