The Rent Act 1977 is the piece of legislation which introduced the category of protected tenancy in the law of England and Wales.
1. Why was it introduced? (Political/Sociological Context)
At the end of World War I, the private rented sector was the prevalent housing sector in the UK. The origins of the legislation whose aim was to protect the rights of tenants was during World War I when the government wanted to protect the housing of workers needed for the war effort. The rent protection and the security of tenure measures introduced at the time were meant to be a temporary measure while the war lasted. However, after the war it became politically unreasonable to repeal them and the existing legislation was subsequently consolidated into the Rent Act 1977.
2. What was the aim of the Act? (Legal Context)
The purpose of the Act was to establish the category of protected tenants in order to give long-term security of tenure of tenants whose agreements started prior to 15 January 1989. Another objective of the Rent Act 1977 was to define which properties and tenancies are to be excluded from the possibility of giving rise to a protected tenancy. The reason why it was deemed necessary to introduce protected tenancy legislation as part of the raft of legislation in 1977 relating to housing was to clarify in statutory terms the extent of the tenant’s rights to remain in the property and to outline the limited circumstances in which the landlord may recover possession of the property and evict the tenant.
The additional protection afforded to tenants whose tenancies started prior to 15 January 1989 was not considered to be disproportionate because the number of this type of tenancies was expected to progressively decrease.
The Act aimed to determine the rules of succession of protected tenancies, so that it is in line with the Character of Fundamental Rights. The rules of succession of protected tenancies are the reason why the Rent Act 1977 is bound to remain in force for some time, despite the fact that the number of protected tenancies is constantly decreasing.
3. What main changes did it make to the law?
The three main changes that the Rent Act 1977 introduced to the common law for tenancies was to introduce rent regulation, to introduce long term security of tenure and to introduce new rules of succession, i.e. to define what happens to the tenancy after the tenant dies.
In relation to rent control, s. 67 confers to protected tenants the right to apply to register for a fair rent. Once they do so, this is the only rent these tenants can be charged. If the tenant is not registered for fair rent, they must be notified of their right when the rent is increased or otherwise, the increase would be ineffective. The landlord has the right to apply to have this rent reviewed but only if they have carried out major improvement works on the property. Subsequently, the Rent Acts (Maximum Fair Rents) Order 1999 limited the amount by which a fair rent could be increased.
In regards to the security of tenure, under s. 2 once the fixed term of protected tenancy expires, it turns in to a statutory tenancy, which can only be ended by the rules set out in the Rent Act 1977. Schedule 15 of the Act sets out the discretionary and mandatory cases in which such a tenancy may be ended. The difference between the two is that the former may be granted if a judge considers it reasonable to do so. The mandatory grounds for ending the tenancy are, for instance, cases in which the owner-occupiers needed to recover possession because they had left their house while living abroad or where the bought a property to retire to but rented it out in the meantime. In these circumstances, the landlord is required to give adequate notice to the tenant. If no mandatory grounds are available and the discretionary grounds do not apply, under s. 98(1)(a), the landlord still has a chance to recover possession, but only if they provide suitable alternative accommodation for the tenant. Under s. 2, the tenant can lose the security of tenure if instead of occupying the property, he moves out or sub-lets it to someone else, in which case his protected tenancy will turn into a common law tenancy and can be terminated at any time by giving an appropriate notice. S. 101 also allows landlords to recover possession if the tenant is guilty of an offence of overcrowding.
Schedule 1 Rent Act 1977 defines the rules of succession, applicable to protected tenancies which became statutory tenancies. The tenant’s spouse or their same sex partner is entitled to stay in the property under the statutory tenancy. If the tenant had no spouse or same sex partner before they died, any family member who was living with the tenant at the time when he died is entitled to take over the tenancy but as an assured tenant under the Housing Act 1988. In cases where a spouse or same sex partner takes over the tenancy, there is a possibility of a second succession if at the time that they died, any of their family members was living with them.
2026 update
The Rent Act 1977 remains in force but its practical scope is now very limited. Following the Housing Act 1988, most new private residential tenancies created after 15 January 1989 are assured or assured shorthold tenancies, rather than protected tenancies under the Rent Act regime. As a result, the Act now primarily applies only to older regulated tenancies that began before that date.
Because no new protected tenancies are normally created, the number of regulated tenancies under the Rent Act 1977 has steadily declined over time. However, the Act continues to remain relevant in practice because existing regulated tenancies still benefit from rent regulation, strong security of tenure and statutory succession rights.
In modern housing law, the Rent Act 1977 is therefore mainly encountered in relation to long-standing tenancies that pre-date the Housing Act 1988, while the vast majority of private sector tenancies are now governed by the statutory framework introduced by the 1988 Act and later housing legislation.
