Rent freeze in Scotland – landlords left out in the cold

The immediate freezing of rent across Scotland to help tackle the cost of living crisis was announced this week as the “centrepiece” of the Scottish Government’s priorities for 2022-23.

This may have come as unexpected and unwelcome news to the property sector – both private sector landlords and social housing associations are facing their own rising costs and were not consulted in advance of this change.

The announcement confirmed that, as of 6 September 2022, rent would be frozen in Scotland until at least 31 March 2023 across both the private and social housing sectors. The Scottish Government intends to introduce emergency legislation without delay to include this new policy change. In his emergency budget statement to Parliament yesterday, John Swinney, the Acting Finance Secretary, emphasised that the Scottish Government budget is “at its absolute limits of affordability” and set out significant reductions in planned spending, comprising £500m of cuts. The details of the emergency legislation are yet to be set out.

As we have seen with many of the ‘emergency’ legislative powers put in place during Covid, these can endure for far longer than anticipated – and potentially with many undesirable and unintended consequences. It is critical that the private rental and social housing sectors engage directly with the Scottish Government now, to secure clarity on the duration of this short-term policy, to relay the sector’s concerns about the immediate impact on the availability of both housing and underlying investment, and to seek appropriate assurances to avoid a medium to longer-term adverse impact on investment in the Scottish housing sector and beyond.

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