Vol. 560 No. 3
435 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if the next item of private rented sector legislation promised for 2003 must not compromise successor tenants' ability to claim rights under the Landlord and Tenants (Amendment) Act 1980. [2787/03]
It is the intention that the Housing (Private Rented Sector) Bill will abolish, with effect from five years after enactment of the relevant provision, the right to claim a lease on the basis of long occupation equity under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1980 where such a lease is being claimed for the first time. During the transitional five-year period an option to renounce the entitlement, similar to that introduced for offices in 1994 and recommended in the 1996 report of the working group on security of tenure, will be available. Any tenant who has never previously had a long occupation equity lease and who does not exercise an entitlement under the 1980 Act to such a lease before or during those five years would lose that right. Tenants in the formerly rent controlled sector, for whom the protection of the Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Acts expired in July 2002, would have already satisfied the 20 year occupation requirement for eligibility to claim the lease and so the five year transitional period gives them ample opportunity to do so before the entitlement is abolished.
