The cross party parliamentary committee reviewing the Government's legislative proposals for reforming the private rented sector have taken on board concerns expressed about some of the proposals set out in the Fairer Private Rented Sector white paper published by DLUHC last year.

Of particular concern to private rented sector landlords are the proposed changes to the section 21 and section 8 repossession procedures - abolishing the former and updating the latter - as well as the proposal that fixed term tenancies should be abolished - which would negatively affect the student PRS sector.

Amongst other issues the committee also considered the overburdened court system, in relation to landlord/tenant disputes, as well as local authority housing enforcement capabilities.

On the abolition of fixed term tenancies the committee pointed out that there needed to be a "reasonable balance struck" between security of tenure for tenants and a degree of certainty for landlords and recommended that "tenants be unable to give two months' notice to leave until they have been in a property for at least four months. This will give landlords the legal certainty of at least six months' rent at the start of a tenancy". The committee then went on to distinguish between purpose built student accommodation (e.g. Halls of Residence) and ordinary PRS student accommodation - the latter more likely to be used by students after their first year and students looking for more affordable accommodation generally. It accepted that the abolition of fixed term tenancies would have a negative effect on the student rental market - a point which had been made not just by landlords but also by "some" student unions. The committee recommended therefore that fixed term tenancies should be retained for the entire student housing market but that all landlords letting to students be required to sign up to one of the approved codes of conduct currently used by landlords of purpose built student accommodation. Going forward, it said, the Government should consider replacing the existing codes with a single national code of conduct.

The committee accepted the concerns submitted by both landlords and tenant groups about the current sclerosis in the court system, which is beset by backlogs and called for the Government to consider ways which would make the judicial system work more efficiently in housing cases. This problem, it said, needs to be dealt with before section 21 notices are abolished and the creation of a specialist Housing Court would be one way of doing this. The committee said "whether the Government does this or not, it is absolutely essential that the Government significantly increase the courts' ability to process possession claims quickly and efficiently and in a way that is fair to both landlords and tenants".

Of most interest to local authorities was what the committee said about housing standards enforcement: "If the decent homes standard is to improve standards in the private rented sector, local authorities will have to enforce it vigorously ..... if the proposals are to deter the very worst landlords, enforcement rates will have to improve significantly across the vast majority of local authorities." The committee went on to recommend that non payment of a civil penalty be made a criminal offence as it was unlikely that the Government was, in the current economic climate, going to give councils extra funding to enforce the decent homes standard properly and enforcement of standards would need to be self financing. It also recommended that the Government should remove the requirement for councils to seek approval from the DLUHC Secretary of State to bring in selective licensing schemes above 20% of the PRS homes in their area.

The Government has two months to respond to the committee's recommendations and the full report can be accessed here.