Landlords could be BANNED from hiking their rents after new laws scrap sky-high fees, MPs set to say

LANDLORDS should be stopped from hiking rents to make up for scrapping rip-off tenancy fees, MPs are set to demand.

Members of the influential housing committee will tell ministers that they need to tweak proposed laws to make sure that tenants aren’t left in the lurch as part of plans to ban tenancy fees.

Last year the Government launched their draft of the Tenant Fees Bill which will ban slapping hundreds of pounds extra on tenants when they sign a contract, or renew it.

The fees often cover basic administration, references and credit checks.

Tenants are worried that they will just face higher rents as a result of the tenancy fees ban – as the costs creep in elsewhere.

Young people have told The Sun that the Prime Minister must act now on housing – or risk their vote to Jeremy Corbyn.

MPs have told The Sun that the fresh recommendations on the new law will say:

• Landlords and agencies should not be able to hike rents to compensate for banning fees – and ministers should set out guidance on what “reasonable fees” can be charged
• Deposits should be capped at five week’s rent and any money given to secure a property should be returned if the sale doesn’t go ahead
• Landlords should have to give a reason for chucking tenants out of their houses to prevent them being evicted for asking for house repairs
• Trading Standards should be given the powers and resources to take action against landlords who evict tenants in ‘revenge’

One MP told The Sun agencies should “not be allowed” to force extra costs onto renters to compensate for scrapping the fees.

The committee found that agencies were already charging double fees anyway – to both the tenant and the landlord for doing the same things.

A consultation recently showed that 9 out of ten backed the move to scrap fees altogether.

But it’s not set to become law for at least another year, meaning thousands of renters will have to pay an extra £233 on average in the meantime.

Dan Wilson Craw, Director of Generation Rent told The Sun: “The letting fees ban will save people hundreds of pounds when they start a tenancy.

“Renters will also have more bargaining power if their current landlord isn’t fixing a broken boiler or trying to raise the rent, because it’ll be cheaper to simply move out.

“Our worry about the Bill is that if ‘reasonable’ fees are allowed, that’ll just allow dodgy agents to play the system and continue to exploit tenants.”

And Adam Hyslop, OpenRent Co-Founder said: “Any ban on tenant fees must not allow unscrupulous agents or landlords to continue extracting unfair fees from tenants via the backdoor: whether that means adding dodgy ‘default fee’ clauses to their contracts or making large deductions from the deposit at the end of the tenancy.

“When faced with rising costs from letting agent fees, we think that landlords are much more likely to respond by binning their costly high street agent than by increasing their rents.”

But  Richard Lambert, CEO of the National Landlords Association (NLA) said: “If agents are unable to charge fees to tenants, they will have no other option than try to shift it on landlords, who will then want to pass it back to the tenant through increasing rents.

“There’s no doubt that some agents have got away with excessive fees and double-charging landlords and tenants for far too long, but agents play a key role in managing properties and the ban will eventually boomerang back on tenants”.

Upcoming legislation will also take into account a number of other issues for tenants – including retaliatory evictions.

One option the committee will propose is to give Trading Standards or another body the powers to punish landlords for kicking people out of their homes for no reason.

Tenants could take action against landlords if they felt they were being treated unfairly.

MPs want to “stamp out demands from crooked landlords who tell them they have to pay to make their home safe, shut up about it, or they are out on the streets.”

Private landlords are already able to turf out tenants without any reason under a law known as Section 21 – which give you just two months notice.

More than 22,000 tenants in England were evicted in 2015, according to data collected for the Joseph Roundtree Foundation earlier this year.

But Alan Ward, Chair of the Residential Landlords Association said: “Policy makers need to address the problem of tenants who fail to pay their rent with as much energy as tackling rogue landlords. Proposals to lower the cap on deposits paid by tenants will play into the hands of the minority of tenants who cheat those providing housing for them out of the rent they are legitimately owed.

“We see also little point in calling for new powers to prevent landlords evicting tenants simply for raising complaints about standards in properties when powers already exist to outlaw this practice. What is needed is not new law but councils better enforcing the large array of powers they already have to root out bad landlords and tenants.”

MPs will recommend more measures in the coming weeks to encourage long-term rents in the coming months too – like in Germany where they are the norm.

Britain’s chronic housing shortage is the second most important issue to the public, new studies have said.

Theresa May has vowed to fix Britain’s “broken” housing market, vowing more new homes and ripping up planning rules which slow building down.

She says she wants to build “more homes more quickly” and promised to ease the misery of millions of private renters too.

Earlier this month she insisted that renters must be treated like “human beings” and said she would protect them from “cowboy agents”.