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A New Deal for Tenants: Rents Down, Rights Up!

  • Scotland’s tenants need homes we can afford, so that we’re not priced out of our communities.
  • We need security of tenure, not just a place we can stay for a while.
  • We need homes that are warm, so that heating them doesn’t cost the earth.
  • We need access to justice and better enforcement, so that we can defend ourselves when landlords treat us unfairly. 

The Scottish Government has promised to introduce rent controls and greater rights for tenants in this Parliament.
Between December 2021 and April 2022, the Scottish Government consulted on proposed changes to the law.

As Scotland's tenants union, we demanded:

  • AFFORDABLE HOMES: a point-based system of rent controls to bring down housing costs and improve housing quality and a greater supply of social housing

  • QUALITY HOMES: greater and clearer penalties for landlords who refuse to make repairs, as well as clearer incentives for improvements such as energy efficiency

  • SECURE HOMES: greater protections for tenants, including banning winter evictions, making all grounds discretionary and introducing meaningful penalties for breaches of the law

  • HOMES THAT ARE OURS: the right to make it ours by not facing undue restrictions on what we can do, such as having pets or redecorating

  • STRONGER VOICES FOR TENANTS: control over our homes, which means making rent consultation results binding, and ensuring we don’t face repercussions for exercising our rights

Get in touch if you want to get involved locally and push for change. 

6,152 endorsements
5,000 endorsements

Will you endorse Living Rent's response?


3379

  • Imogen Guy
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:05:28 +0000
  • Hannah Mackintosh
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:04:06 +0000
  • Bart Manders
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:03:51 +0000
  • Ciaran Woods
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:01:14 +0000
    Affordable housing. It’s getting ridiculous paying double someone’s mortgage just to have a mediocre place to sleep at night.
  • James Robert Gillespie
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:00:58 +0000
    Far more social housing at affordable and controlled levels of rent is my priority. That can help us to end the blight of homelessness in one of the world’s richest countries, greatly reduce the use of, and need for, food banks and make me feel that we live in a caring, humane and civilised country.
  • Chloe Lyth
    endorsed 2022-03-07 20:00:01 +0000
    Affordable rent and flats not being empty until august (that is Edinburgh specific)
  • Katherine Swinley
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:59:24 +0000
    Affordability and reliability on landlords
  • Jenna Howe
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:59:02 +0000
    More availability of affordable and appropriate housing for disabled people
  • Alan Davidson
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:56:43 +0000
  • Mark Kerr
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:55:50 +0000
  • Muireann Crowley
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:55:01 +0000
    Rent controls now to bring rents down, linked to quality of housing, and applying to all forms of rented accommodation.
  • Mari Young
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:54:56 +0000
    Affordable homes and tenant protection
  • Cherie Lavalle
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:54:52 +0000
  • Amber Stevenson
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:54:13 +0000
    Rent controls, accountability for landlords
  • Kyle Collins
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:53:43 +0000
    Rent controls desperately needed
  • Lesley Benzie
    endorsed via 2022-03-07 19:53:38 +0000
    Reasonable rents for good quality housing
  • Mary Morton
    endorsed via 2022-03-07 19:51:35 +0000
    More disabled access properties.
  • Lesley Scarles
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:51:20 +0000
    Availability in mixed residential areas, reasonable rent (no more than a quarter of income no matter income or location), landlords held to account for repairs and condition of property, fines if failure to maintain property to good standard and to make repairs within a short time limit, greater restrictions on whole property holiday / short term lets. Allow personal decoration, pets and get rid of deposit system.
  • Rosalind Scott
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:50:48 +0000
    Property managers and landlords need to take responsibility and need to stop taking advantage by letting buildings decay and allowing tenants to trash the back courts.
  • Rosanne Davidson
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:47:32 +0000
    Renting should be affordable, clean, warm and safe for tenants and shouldn’t prevent people from being able to save up for a mortgage. The scales are out of whack and lean on the landlords side.
  • Joey Simons
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:45:55 +0000
    A real system of rent controls, a programme of council house building, and recognition agreements with tenants’ unions
  • Hannah M
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:45:24 +0000
  • Iain Alasdair Shewan Shewan
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:44:31 +0000
    Banning of Air B & Bs and a cap on rents.
  • Ruth Parker
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:43:38 +0000
  • Alice Savage
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:42:07 +0000
  • Caroline Robertson
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:41:42 +0000
    More protection for tenants and their tenancies, lower rents and more affordable rents, more social housing builds, laws to enforce responsibility from landlords.
  • Tristan Haase
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:41:03 +0000
  • Katie Aitken
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:33:57 +0000
  • Audrey Bizouerne
    endorsed 2022-03-07 19:32:47 +0000
  • Christina Gallagher
    endorsed via 2022-03-07 19:30:41 +0000
    Don’t think we get money worth for renting we pay