Some extremely helpful myths about the new Private Residential Tenancy were relesed on 1st December by the Scottish Council of Letting Agents. I have included them here...
1. Rent increases
Many landlords seem to be under the impression that the rent can’t be increased during the first 12 months of the tenancy. This is not the case. The first rent increase can be carried out at any time. Once the first increase has been done the rent cannot be increased more frequently than 12 monthly thereafter.
2. Notice period
It is a common belief that once the tenant has occupied the property for 6 months, landlords must give them 84 days’ notice to end the tenancy. This is not the case if the tenancy is being ended because the tenant has breached a term of the tenancy agreement e.g. if they are in rent arrears or if there are problems with anti-social behaviour. If one of the breach grounds applies then the landlord is only required to give 28 days’ notice, regardless of how long the tenant has been in occupation.
3. Rent arrears
Many landlords believe that tenants need to owe 3 months’ rent before they can be evicted for rent arrears. Under the PRT tenants need to have owed some rent for a period of 3 months for the rent arrears eviction ground to apply. If they owe at least a months' rent when the tribunal hear the case then it is a mandatory eviction ground. If the arrears are below this level then it is discretionary. Landlords can serve the notice to leave as soon as the tenant falls into arrears. However, application can't be made to the tribunal for an eviction order until the tenant has owed some rent for a period of 3 months.
The new Private Residential Tenancy (PRT) includes 18 grounds for possession that a landlord can use to apply for an eviction order. There are 10 mandatory grounds, where the tribunal has no discretion to refuse the eviction if the ground is proved, and 8 discretionary grounds, where the tribunal should consider whether it is reasonable to grant an eviction order.
Given that the PRT has only been in place for a year, there are still a large number of Short Assured Tenancies in place and the new tribunal also deals with all hearings relating to Short Assured Tenancies. Ending a Short Assured Tenancy is the only direct contact that 1LET has thus far had with the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) and at each hearing an eviction order has been granted.
Moving forward it will be interesting to see how the mandatory and discretionary grounds are used by landlords. It is still too soon to form any sort of picture.
One thing is clear. The FTT have struggled to keep up with the number of applications that they have received to date. Anticipated numbers of applications have been exceeded several times over, and extremely long lead times for processing and hearing some applications is a significant issue. For a straight forward application where everything is provided in the correct manner lead times are currently running at 7 - 9 weeks.
Ewan McLean-Foreman
MD - 1LET