Person in a suit holding a pen, with their forearms resting on a flat white surface

Categories: government and politics | prs

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has shot down calls within the Labour party for landlords to be forced to provide tenants’ references upon request.

At present, tenants are able to request references from their current or previous landlords when applying to rent a new property. These can be useful for landlords aiming to vet tenancy candidates and avoid those that could cause trouble.

However, landlords are not legally required to comply with these requests if they don’t want to.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, wrote an appeal to Pennycook, asking him whether there were “potential merits of making it a statutory duty for landlords to provide tenant references when requested”. 

Reasoning

Pennycook responded to this question by emphasising the other resources landlords can use for vetting prospective tenants: 

Where a landlord has requested a reference from a previous landlord and is unable to obtain this, we encourage landlords to make use of other available referencing criteria to give them and the tenant the confidence that the tenancy is suitable.

This is already common practice for tenants renting for the first time or those from abroad. Local authorities may also offer guarantee schemes or assistance with rent payments to help people on low incomes or at risk of homelessness to secure a property when they may otherwise struggle to do so.

The government has no plans to introduce a statutory duty for landlords to provide tenants’ references when requested.

Pro-tenant sentiment

The government commonly faces questions and feedback from MPs within the party. Established party members have a higher chance of influencing policy.

Some Labour MPs are known to have more critical views on the private rental sector (PRS) than the typical ‘party line’. Dr Allin-Khan was elected to her position back in 2016, when Labour had a much more vocal ‘pro-tenant’ campaign rhetoric under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Relief for landlords

The suggestion of another compulsory PRS rule may not be received well by many private landlords, considering the large number of reforms soon to be enacted by the Renters’ Rights Bill.  

Mandatory tenant references would carry some degree of risk for private landlords. Although landlords often rely on the word of other landlords when deciding to let out a property to a prospective tenant, there are occasionally reasons to take tenant reviews with a grain of salt.

For example, in order to get rid of a troublesome tenant, a landlord could offer to give a tenant a glowing reference as an incentive for them to leave voluntarily.  

On paper, this tactic could avoid costly and time-consuming eviction processes, but has the consequence of foisting the problem onto another unsuspecting landlord.

Pennycook’s measured response may therefore be reassuring to private landlords. It echoes his previous opposition to the suggestion of rent controls, another controversial policy that has some support within the more left-leaning cliques of the Labour Party. 

As new PRS legislation continues to be discussed in parliament, we will keep you updated on what gets through, and what gets cut off at the pass.