Though not directly referred to in the Queen's speech, the binning of s.21 eviction notices is, effectively, the headline act in the briefly mentioned rental reform part of yesterday's speech where the Govt outlined its legislative menu for this parliament.

The Rental Reform Bill which the Govt plans to introduce wasn't exactly fleshed out in the background papers to the speech but there was a teaser about what a replacement could look like - pretty much, it seems, an updated s.8 notice process.

Although a legislative "white paper" will be published giving more detail, the Queen's speech background paper says that beyond scrapping s.21 a further main element of the bill will be reform of the repossession process so that landlords will get new and stronger grounds for possession relating to "repeated incidences" of rent arrears and reducing notice periods for anti-social behaviour thus making repossession more "efficient" for landlords.

In addition there will be a new Ombudsman for private landlords so that landlords and tenants have the opportunity to resolve disputes without needing to go to court with all the expense that court action entails.

Although there is already plenty of information on landlords' obligations on the Govt's webpage as well as on every local authority webpage, the bill will also introduce a new web portal aiming to help landlords understand their those obligations, give tenants "performance information" to help hold a landlord to account as well as "aiding" local authorities.

Until there is more detail on these developments however, all that can be said is that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. At least it's a start though.