Cost of Living Act and those who leave joint tenancies: FOI release

Information requested

Documentation which relates to the Scottish Government’s Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, specifically to what extent protections for those who leave joint tenancies resulting in the ability for landlords to bypass protections in the aforementioned Act.

• All stakeholders consulted on the legislation.
• Any documents specifically relating to potential for the joint tenancies to lead to circumvention of the act.
• Any work the Scottish Government carried out to measure the robustness of the policy.

Response

Regarding your first and third points, all of this information is available within the following documents:

• Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022: first report to the Scottish Parliament
• Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 - proposed extension: statement of reasons
• Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 - 2nd proposed extension: statement of reasons
• The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022: report to the Scottish Parliament - 1 June to 30 September 2023

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

We have read your second point to mean a request for information from the planning of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 which specifically discuss the potential outcomes for joint tenancies regarding their coverage by the emergency measures affecting rent increases.

I enclose a copy of the information you requested. Information has been removed from these documents where either the information was beyond the scope of your request and/or an exemption applies. In this instance, s.38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to some of that information. This exemption is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

It is important to also note that the emergency measures affecting rent increases contained in the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 always applied only to in-tenancy rent increases. Where a new tenancy is created, the landlord is able to increase the rent. The Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 does give the landlord of a joint tenancy household the right to request that a new tenancy be issued at the point of a new person moving into a shared property, and it was not possible for the emergency measures to make fundamental changes to that legislation.

Information was published on the Scottish Government website in October 2022 clarifying that the emergency measures did not apply to new tenancies, which include some joint tenancies where some tenants are moving out and others are remaining in the property, but only where a new tenancy is being created.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300380821 - Information released - Annex

File type

14 page PDF

File size

2.0 MB