Tenants face rent rises and potential eviction as the Government delays the highly anticipated Renter's Rights Bill and fails to implement its key manifesto pledge to ban no-fault evictions this summer.
Housing industry experts and campaigners warn that pushing the bill back to the autumn gives landlords a window to review and raise rents in a city where housing costs and those being forced into temporary accommodation and homelessness are on the rise.
Despite the pre-election pledge to "immediately abolish no-fault evictions", the Labour government is facing a race to bring multiple bills through parliament ahead of the summer recess which starts at the end of July and runs until September.
It looks likely that the Renters Rights Bill will be delayed until the autumn and then there will follow an implementation period, meaning tenants can be evicted through no fault of their own and with no warning up until the spring 2026.
"25,000 households in Britain have been threatened with homelessness since the last election so we can now extend that out by another eight to nine months. And that number only accounts for those families that approached their council about it. That is the real and obvious human cost to this," says Tom Darling, director of the Renters' Reform Coalition (which includes organisations such as Crisis and Shelter).
"It also delays all the work that needs to be done to improve the standards in private renting around issues such as mould and damp," Darling adds.
For those landlords who have not reviewed their rent over the last year, this gives them an opportunity to do so, explains Polly Ogden Duffy, managing director of the estate agent group John D Wood.
Rents in London rose 7.7 per cent in the year to June, taking them to £2,249 on average per calendar month, up a third from £1,580 a decade ago (Office of National Statistics).
"There is no question that in London landlords have been attempting to exit the market. Some believe the Renters' Rights Bill takes away the flexibility to sell your property if you are not making any profit as a landlord," Ogden Duffy explains.
Under the potential new law, if a landlord evicts a tenant in order to try and sell the home, but does not complete the transaction, they cannot then relet it for another 12 months.
This continued exodus by landlords of the rental sector will mean further rent rises for tenants as supply dwindles and demand continues to rise.
"I only see rents continuing to creep up," says Gary Hall, head of residential letting at Knight Frank.
There are concerns from both sides of sector – albeit those campaigning for the tenant or for the landlord – over the content of the bill.
Darling is calling for rent caps in line with lowest level of wage inflation to tackle the widespread housing affordability crisis in London.
Odgen Duffy also agrees that the high cost of private rent is sending young talent out of the capital.
"This level of protection for the tenant feels like a good idea in principle but the devil is in the detail and I am really concerned about the underlying issues," says Hall.
"I don't think the Government has confidence in it yet either, which is part of the reason why it has been delayed. In its current form, once implemented, it could go very wrong, very quickly," he concludes.
