Under the skin of the letting market

Until this year electrical safety certificates were not a mandatory requirement for rented properties. However, as landlords have a common law duty of care to their tenants, our company policy has always been to strongly recommend that our clients have an electrical safety test carried out on their property as a way of ensuring that the electrical installations are safe. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector Regulations 2020, introduced this year, are a welcome piece of legislation that will help to clarify the definition of ‘safe’ and mean that all landlords will now be required to do what good landlords already do: to ensure that the electrics in their rental property are not dangerous.

With the general election concluded and Brexit on the horizon, 2020 is set to be an interesting year. There will undoubtedly be changes which will impact landlords, and although some of the detail remains cloudy at this point, our eight offices are set to deal with the changing face of the private rental sector (PRS).

A window of certainty

Nearly four years of uncertainty caused by protracted Brexit negotiations have clearly impacted the PRS. We have seen tenants demanding far more flexibility in their contracts and prospective landlords delaying letting properties due to ‘the unknown’. As such, the conviction of the government’s plan for the UK to leave the EU on 31st January could result in moderate improvements in demand from tenants and landlords as optimism returns – assuming any post-Brexit Right to Rent issues are properly addressed. There are, of course, longer-term uncertainties which could affect the market, but we are likely to see a bounce in the first six months – make hay while the sun shines!