Market rents: the role of the Rent Assessment Committee under the 1988 housing legislation - the Scottish experience

Robson, Peter (1996) Market rents: the role of the Rent Assessment Committee under the 1988 housing legislation - the Scottish experience. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 18 (2). pp. 203-215. ISSN 0964-9069

Abstract

This study looks at applications to the Rent Assessment Committee (RAC) operating the assured tenancy legislation under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988. It is based on an examination of all the applications made to the RAC in Scotland over a six-year period between 1989 and the end of 1994. It covers the role of the Committees in fixing market rents in relation to statutory assured tenancies and short assured tenancies (equivalent of 'shorthold assured' tenancy) and discusses the criteria identified in these processes. It also looks at the other work of the Rent Assessment Committee which casts light on how the private rented market is operating in the 1990s. It concludes that the level and nature of applications to Rent Assessment Committees has resulted in few decisions which can usefully be used by either landlords' or tenants' advisers as precedents. There have been limited and largely anodyne Notes of Reasons. The level of application withdrawal is high. Various reasons have been put forward based on anecdotal evidence but further work is required to test these hypotheses

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