Private Tenants' Charter consultation

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This consultation has closed.


Have your say on protecting the rights of tenants through the introduction of a new Private Tenants’ Charter.


Overview

We are committed to helping Barnet residents who live in private rented accommodation in the borough. In particular, we want to ensure residents who rent from private landlords have a better understanding of their rights as a tenant and what they can expect if something goes wrong or where to go for help.

As part of our commitment, we are developing a new Private Tenants’ Charter that focuses on setting out the standards and legal obligations that landlords and agents must


Have your say on protecting the rights of tenants through the introduction of a new Private Tenants’ Charter.


Overview

We are committed to helping Barnet residents who live in private rented accommodation in the borough. In particular, we want to ensure residents who rent from private landlords have a better understanding of their rights as a tenant and what they can expect if something goes wrong or where to go for help.

As part of our commitment, we are developing a new Private Tenants’ Charter that focuses on setting out the standards and legal obligations that landlords and agents must follow in order to protect the rights of private tenants. We are inviting your views on what the charter should look like, how we can raise awareness of tenants’ rights, and whether these rights are being upheld across the borough.

The draft Private Tenants’ Charter has been put together by our Housing Regulatory Service. It sets out our principles we believe that landlords and agents must adhere to in order for tenants to be treated fairly and feel safe in their homes.


Your views are important to us

We want to make sure that private tenants can be part of developing this charter and want to hear your views, thoughts and ideas. We invite you to read out first draft of a new Private Tenants’ charter and give your thoughts. If you would like to have a say or be involved in developing the final version of our Private Tenants’ Charter, we would like to hear from you.


How to have your say

To have your say, first, please read our proposed Private Tenants’ Charter and then complete our online questionnaire. The survey should take between 5 -10 minutes to complete.

If you would like to request a paper questionnaire or another format, please:

  • email: housingconditions@barnet.gov.uk
  • write to us at: Housing Regulatory Services, Regulatory Services, London Borough of Barnet, 2 Bristol Avenue, Colindale, London, NW9 4EW
  • telephone 020 8358 7995

If you would like someone to help you complete the questionnaire or need more information, please contact us using one of the above methods.


What happens after the consultation closes?

The council will use the consultation findings to inform our final version of our Private Tenants’ Charter. We will publish the results of the consultation, our decision and how we are acting on the results of the consultation on this web page in March 2025.

This consultation has closed.

  • We asked, you said, we did

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    We asked

    We have developed a new Private Tenants’ Charter that focuses on setting out the standards and legal obligations that landlords and agents must follow in order to protect the rights of private tenants. We asked for your views on what the charter should look like, how we can raise awareness of tenants’ rights, and whether these rights are being upheld across the borough. We wanted to make sure that the information was clear and would help inform tenants of their rights.


    You said

    Overall, the feedback to the charter was positive. You liked that we split the charter into four sections as you felt this made it easier to understand. You also agreed with the inclusion of the principles in the charter. And finally, the majority of you said that after reading the charter you felt more informed about your rights as a tenant.

    However, you did have some suggestions on how we could improve the charter. The key points of feedback were:

    • Make the language simpler and clearer.

    • Provide additional information.

    • Include a section on tenants’ responsibilities.

    • Make it clearer how the council actually enforces these rights.

    • A few of you felt we could be doing more.

    • Make sure the information is easily searchable on our website.


    We did

    We reviewed the document and clarified points which respondents flagged as unclear. We also included links to additional information in sections where we felt this could be beneficial. We want this document to be an easily accessible and short explanation of tenants’ rights, so we don’t want to overload it with information. However, we hope these links to further information can help those who want to know more. We have gone through the document and signposted these links to make this clearer.

    In response to your feedback, we have added a section of tenants’ responsibilities. While this document is primarily intended to address tenants’ rights, we hear your feedback that it can come across as a little one-sided. Therefore, we have added some information on tenants’ responsibilities and linked to an external webpage where you can find out more.

    In response to your questions about our role as a council, we have made the section on how to report an issue and what we will do in response more explicit. There is also new renters’ rights legislation due to come in later this year which will give us greater power to protect and enforce the rights of private tenants. We will update the Private Tenants Charter once this legislation has passed.

    Finally, when we launch the charter, we will work with our web design team to make sure that all the information included can be easily found when searched for.