RENTING rights groups have warned that new Labour regulations to ban Section 21 evictions will be effectively unenforceable in London.

Campaigners joined policy experts to warn the Housing Committee of the Greater London Authority (GLA) of “huge problems” with enforcement of the Renters’ Rights Act due to local authorities’ lack of funds. 

While acknowledging the increase in power for councils under Labour’s landmark policy, Acorn’s national organiser Paul Williams raised concerns about their real ability to check rogue landlords.

Mr Williams said: “At the moment, there’s huge problems with how enforcement is carried out across the city, and unless there is a strategy from City Hall and increased funding for local government, we’re very concerned with that.”

He also criticised a proposed 10-year wait for the Decent Homes Standard (DHS) to be implemented for private-sector renters for the first time.

The Renters’ Rights Act did not outline a date for when these quality standards would come into force, with a previous statement from the government indicating it could be in 2035 or 2037.

He told the meeting the delay was “ridiculous,” adding: “Is that ever going to happen? The government’s just kicked that into long grass and let future governments deal with that.”

Renters’ Reform Coalition policy officer Niamh Evans agreed that the “primary concern” is how well protections for renters are enforced.

In the last three years, she said, only one landlord in the capital has been prosecuted for an illegal eviction.

Alva Gotby, solidarity organiser at the London Renters Union, said there is the potential for “a certain group of landlords” to decide they will not adhere to new regulations.

She said: “And they might do things like use licence agreements for no other reason than that they don’t want to have an assured tenancy in place.

“So there needs to be a strategy to deal with things like that.”

Ms Gotby added: “If local authorities don’t have the means or the will to carry out that enforcement and protect the most vulnerable residents, there is a risk that this can create, in certain places, a sort of two-tier system where more vulnerable people, students, disabled people, people who don’t speak English as their first language, are sort of pushed into a more unregulated part of the private rented sector.”