Private Residential Tenancies: Your Essential Guide To The New Regime

Landlords letting a residential property under a new lease are now subject to a new letting regime in Scotland. The 'private residential tenancy' has been created by the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016, and from 1 December 2017, all new tenancies of residential property (that is not exempt) to individuals must be a private residential tenancy (PRT).

The PRT will replace assured tenancies and short assured tenancies. There is no equivalent to the short assured tenancy under the 2016 Act, and in fact the new tenancy will be open-ended. It will last until a tenant wishes to leave the let property, or a landlord uses one (or more) of 18 grounds for eviction (please see Table C).

Any existing short assured or assured tenancy (and also statutory and protected tenancies) will continue until either the tenant or the landlord brings it to an end by serving notice to quit the let property. Any short assured tenancy that is renewing on a rolling basis can continue until either the landlord or the tenant bring it to an end or can be renewed at the expiry date by the same parties.

A landlord and tenant under an assured or short assured tenancy can agree to convert it to a PRT, but there is no compulsion to do so, nor any automatic conversion, and it is difficult to see how conversion would be attractive to either landlords or tenants.

What is a PRT?

A residential tenancy will be a PRT if:

the property is let to a person as a separate dwelling (this includes lets where there are shared facilities); the tenant lives in the property as their main or only home; the rent payable is more than £6 per week, not including any services, repairs, maintenance or insurance; the property is not an excluded premises (please see Table A); If the tenancy meets these requirements, it will be a PRT; if it does not, and is not an excluded property, it may fall into

TABLE A

The tenancy will not be a PRT if:

it is a shop, licensed premises, or property which includes 2 or more acres of agricultural land; it is an agricultural tenancy (including a 1991 Act tenancy, an SLDT, LDT, MLDT or a repairing tenancy) and is occupied by the person responsible for the control of the farming of the let property; it is a student let granted while the tenant is a student AND the landlord is a university, college or other further education body; it is a student let where the landlord is an institutional provider of student accommodation (meaning they can let other properties...