TENANT DEPOSITS IN THE PRIVATE RENTED SECTOR

That this House expresses concern that, although deposit protection was introduced with overwhelming support from April 2007 to protect tenants renting in the private sector on assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs), a significant number of tenants remain unprotected because tenancies where the annual rent exceeds £25,000 are outside the protection offered by ASTs; notes that many dwellings let on joint tenancies exceed that £25,000 limit, estimated by the National Union of Students/Unipol at 40 per cent. of all student tenants in London and the South East and 10 per cent. of student tenants throughout the rest of England and Wales; further notes that the threshold of £25,000 was set in 1990 to take luxury lets out of AST protection and that had this threshold been indexed to the Retail Prices Index it would now be £52,000; and calls on the Government to raise the current AST threshold to £52,000 and index it hereafter in order to protect many young and vulnerable house-sharers renting in the private sector, as was originally intended by introducing deposit protection.