The Renters’ Rights Bill has just passed from the House of Commons to the House of Lords and is expected to become law by Spring 2025. IF researcher, Toby Whelton, discusses the legislation and what it means for young people.

Why do young people need a Renters’ Rights Bill?
The cost of rent is high on young people’s agendas because young people are far more likely to be renters than any other generation with a third of all private renters aged between 25−34 years.
Furthermore, the cost of rent is placing unimaginable pressure on young people’s finances. IF’s latest report, Blowing the Budget: Why the young must spend more than the old on essentials, highlights the fact that under-30s’ households spend almost double on essential spending compared to over-65s. The reason for this dramatic disparity can almost entirely be accounted for by the eyewatering costs of housing, in particular rent.
The bad news keeps coming. Last month it was reported that rents rose by 9.1% in November 2024. In 2024, under-45s paid over £56 billion in rent, which is in effect an intergenerational transfer of wealth from young to old.
Why are young people renting?
The national media regularly reports on the number of 20- and 30-somethings living at the parental home. Latest figures show that 1 in 5 (20%) of people in their mid-20s to mid-30s i.e workers rather than students, live with their parents. For those people between 25 and 29 years of age the percentage has increased from 20% to 28% between 2006–07 and 2023–24. That is equivalent to around one-third of that age group. One of the drivers for many will be high rents in locations where rents have risen the most over that period, such as London. Unsurprisingly, the highest rates of living with parents were found in the South West (58%) and the East of England (56%) where rents have risen the most.
The other 80% of 25–34 year-olds who are not lucky enough to have a parental home to leave or return to, have to navigate a red-hot national rental market with average monthly rents running at £1,362 in England, £772 in Wales, and £980 (in Scotland, in the 12 months to November 2024). That dent in their pocket from paying rent means that these renters have less money to save towards the deposit needed to purchase their first home at a time when house prices outpace earnings.
Not only does owning a home seem impossible for the young, but for many even renting is becoming out of reach. It is not uncommon to find that the living room has become an extra bedroom or the increasing incidence of sofa-surfing due to a 90,000 shortfall in social housing which historically has provided a housing safety net.
Renters are also more likely to: experience poor housing conditions; have worse mental health; and face housing “insecurity” from landlord powers to evict with short notice periods. It is therefore not just a question of finances but one of young people’s wellbeing and livelihoods.
There must be significant change to help and protect renters so that young people have access to safe, secure and affordable tenancies that previous generations largely enjoyed.
What does the Bill hope to achieve?
The Renters’ Rights Bill hopes to address these challenges facing young people. The Bill will: end no-fault evictions; ensure rented homes are up to a minimum standard; end estate agent bidding wars; and limit landlords’ abilities to raise rent.
End to Section 21 no-fault evictions
The most significant change will be the abolition of Section 21 no-fault evictions. No longer can a tenant be evicted without due cause. Meanwhile, tenants will be able to terminate a tenancy with two months’ notice.
Such action will help to give much needed security of tenure to younger generations and families. It will also reduce the number of individuals made homeless by eviction as well as rebalance the power in favour of tenants who can no longer be threatened by a no-fault eviction.
However, while the legislation is unequivocally progress for young people and renters, there are concerns that the Bill will not protect against the loophole of landlords being able to increase rents to unaffordable levels as an effective form of eviction.
Will the legislation affect rent prices?
While the Bill will place no direct caps on rent, it will aim to curtail the excesses of the rental market.
The legislation will abolish fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies (AST’s) so that all tenancies become periodic, rolling tenancies, that are renewed on a yearly basis. This will mean that rent can only be raised once a year via Section 13 notices.
In addition, the Bill will ban rental bidding wars so that agents and landlords cannot accept offers higher than the asking price. This will help protect against the situation many renters currently face where they are expected to blindly bid higher than the asking price just to have a chance of securing the tenancy.
These changes are welcome and will protect against the most egregious aspects of the rental market. However, the only truly viable way to decrease rent prices will be to build more houses in targeted areas, and while the government has signalled great intent to do so, only time will tell if they deliver.
Will the legislation improve housing conditions?
Currently, 21% of privately rented homes are of a non-decent standard. A home is considered “non-decent” if it: fails to meet either the minimum health and safety standards; is in a state of disrepair; lacks modern facilities; also has ineffective heating and insulation. Privately rented homes are more likely to have damp and mould as well as contain a Category 1 hazard, which is defined as a serious and immediate risk to an individual’s health and safety, than any other tenure.
Out of the millions of tenants living in non-decent privately rented housing, approximately 500,000 of these are children. The Renters’ Rights Bill aims to fix this by extending the Decent Homes Standard to rental properties and making it mandatory that private rental properties meet these standards. This policy has been effective in improving the standard of social housing, so hopefully the policy will prove successful in improving the conditions young renters face.
Making the rental market fairer
The Bill will also create a new database of landlords and rental properties in order to help enforce compliance and provide visibility. More data on housing is key in order to shine a light on the housing situation of young people and guide future policy decisions.
Lastly, the Bill will prevent landlords from refusing tenants on the basis of having children or being a benefit recipient. This will help provide accommodation for the most vulnerable as well as help house the 160,000 children currently in temporary accommodation.
But what about students?
While there is much to celebrate in the bill, there are some omissions. The main oversight has been for university students. For some inexplicable reason, Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) will remain exempt from Decent Homes Standard requirements. Why does a student not deserve the same minimum standard of housing as everyone else?
In addition, the legislation has rejected calls from the National Union of Students (NUS) to remove landlords’ abilities to ask students for guarantors. The need for guarantors serves to perpetuate inequality amongst students, by pitting poorer students against wealthier students and between those who have parents that can contribute and those who cannot or do not.
Lastly, while the Bill will stop landlords refusing tenancy to those on benefits, this does not prevent landlords discriminating against tenants in receipt of student maintenance loans. This is because maintenance loans are distributed through The Department for Education not The Department for Work and Pensions. This is yet another example of “student poverty” not being considered “actual poverty”.
Not perfect but moving in the right direction
While not perfect, the Renters’ Rights Bill is a great win for younger generations and renters, placing them on a more balanced footing in the rental market. While rent prices will ultimately depend on building more homes and there is still a need for further protections for student housing, the government’s housing policy is trending in the direction of intergenerational fairness.