Short Let Register Taking Shape

The government published its Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan on 27 March. This contains a number of provisions relating to the Private Rented Sector. One of my colleagues discussed the impact on Assured Shorthold tenancies in another blog. However, the government also in the same plan suggested it would create a register of short-term lettings.

This was in fact something of a re-heated announcement. The government had already put a clause creating such a register into the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in its third reading debate in the House of Commons on 13 December 2022, some three months earlier. That Bill is now progressing through the House of Lords where it is in its committee stage. It is therefore close to the end of its progress through Parliament and is likely to become law in the next few months.

However, this does not mean that a register is imminent. The Bill only states that the Secretary of State must make regulations to set up a short-term letting register for England. It does not specify when he must do this. However, it does require a public consultation to take place and allows for that consultation to happen before the Bill comes into effect. In fact, that consultation is already underway and runs until 7 June 2023. So it seems that the government is keen to get on with this reasonably promptly. 

As the Bill allows for regulations to be made to set up the register it is somewhat light as to what the register will look like. All the Bill tells us is that there is to be a register which may not apply to all short lets. Short-lets are defined as including any dwelling, or part of one (so room lets will also be captured) which is let for payment, as a trade or business, for the use of someone other than as their main residence. This will exclude hotels as these are not dwellings but may pick up B&Bs which usually are. The consultation however explicitly says that B&Bs will not be covered by the register so it presumable some means of excluding these will be found in the regulation. Naturally any register will also pick up the more conventional form of short-let which is a repurposed home or part of one. The register may also impose conditions on the property to be registered which may lead to revocation of registration if not complied with.

We can also see from the Bill that there is to be civil sanctions for breaches and failures to register, so it seems that civil penalties, increasingly familiar from a number of other housing regulatory areas, are likely to be appearing in this arena as well. There is also mention of appeals from refusal to register and revocation of registration and while it is not clear where these will be dealt with it seems likely that the, long-suffering, First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) is likely to find itself pressed back into service.

Alongside the short-let register consultation which is being run by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport there is a further consultation being run by the DLUHC which proposes to introduce a new planning use class for short lets. This would mean that future short lets (although not those already in place) would require a separate planning consent. This is something that already exists in Greater London under section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973, which has long had a restriction on short lets, but it will be expanded to England more widely. It will be interesting to see if this drives a short-term rush of landlords moving to short-lets while they have the chance.