This guidance is specific for tenancies in Wales. If you're looking for information relating to tenancies in England, please go here.
What is the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016?
The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 is a piece of legislation that is due to come into effect on 1st December and will apply to both existing tenancies and new tenancies in Wales created on or after the 1st of December 2022.
The Act aims to bring together existing legislation into one framework as well as offer additional protections to both landlords and tenants.
Will OpenRent continue offering Rent Now to landlords in Wales?
Yes!
OpenRent will continue to offer all of our services to landlords with properties in Wales.
We'll make sure that our services, including tenancy agreements, are fully compliant with the new legislation.
Landlords with properties in Wales won’t need to worry about doing anything different when going through Rent Now, this change will be integrated into the current process and an occupation contract will be automatically supplied.
What if my tenancy started before 1st December?
If you have an existing tenancy, or a tenancy that will start before 1st December and continue after the new legislation comes into effect, then your tenancy will automatically become what is known as a “converted occupation contract”.
Under the new legislation, you will have six months from 1st December 2022 to make sure you've met all your legal obligations and issue the tenant(s) with a ‘written statement’ of the converted occupation contract. This will be a new contract which incorporates the terms (clauses) which the new legislation requires into your existing contract.
OpenRent will not be providing a template for a written statement, however, we recommend that landlords use our free renewals feature to issue an Occupation Contract and ensure they have fulfilled this obligation. Alternatively, landlords can refer to our template agreement for Welsh tenancies to help with drafting the new statement of contract themselves.
Occupation contracts with OpenRent on or after 1st December 2022
If you create the tenancy using our Rent Now service on or after 1st December 2022, then we will automatically provide you with a new professionally drafted Occupation Contract.
We've got a full summary of the Act and what it means for both tenants and landlords here. We have also produced some guides in this section of our Help Centre to provide answers to the most common questions.