What New Landlord Rules Are Coming In 2022?

2022 has been a big year in many ways, and the housing market is no exception with changes to things including landlord rules and smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

But what do these changes mean, and what else has 2022 done to change the housing game?

Well firstly, until late last year, property sellers had 20 days to file and pay their Capital Gains bill. This has now been upped to 60 to make it easier for people and to give a little more breathing room when it comes to getting everything filed in time.

And when it comes to tax records and VAT returns, these have made the move to digital as of April this year for submissions. This has been applied to businesses with a taxable turnover of less than £85,000 – those over that threshold have been able to do this for some time.

As mentioned, the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm rules are set for a change that is due to come into play in October this year. Here are the changes there:

• Social landlords to have a smoke alarm on every floor
• A carbon monoxide alarm is required in any room with a solid fuel appliance
• Landlords are required to fix or replace any faulty alarms the moment that they are told about it.

Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 is set to be no more in the spring. This is good news for renters as it will stop tenants from being evicted in a rolling periodic tenancy or at the end of a fixed-term tenancy without giving a reason.

This forms part of the Renters Reform bill which will, amongst other things, look at giving tenants the option of a movable tenancy deposit that can easily be transferred from one landlord to the next.

And then there is something that tenants have been calling on for some time – a change to the rules about owning pets in rented accommodation.

Before the change, it could be virtually impossible to have a pet in a rented home, purely because the landlord decided they did not want people to – even if there was no good reason for the refusal.

Not so with the changes as now tenants are automatically allowed pets, they just need to ask their landlord first, and they have 28 days to respond to the written request. And not only that, but they need a valid reason to say no!

There will likely be more changes in the near future, and there are some interesting ones rumoured to be coming in the next 12 months, but what do you think of the ones that are already in place and on the way?