History of rent control in England and Wales

The history of rent control in England and Wales is a part of English land law concerning the development of rent regulation in England and Wales. Controlling the prices that landlords could make their tenants pay formed the main element of rent regulation, and was in place from 1915 until its abolition (excluding some council houses) by the Housing Act 1988.

There have been significant changes in attitudes and legislation toward the right to housing in mainland Britain. Concepts, such as rent control, 'security of tenure', statutory tenancy, regulated tenancy, fair rent, rent officer, Rent Officer Service and assured tenancy were introduced in the twentieth century, and have developed in the years since. It concerns the intervention of public law rights in private relations between landlord and tenant, and was put in place to counteract the inequality of bargaining power between landlords and tenants.

Rent control and security of tenure were first introduced on 23 December 1915 with the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act 1915 and were intended to be temporary measures (due to expire six months after the end of the First World War) to deal with excessive increases in rents caused by the wartime housing shortage due to the cessation of building.

The Act attempted to remedy this evil by restricting the right of landlords to eject their tenants and prevented them from raising the rent except for limited purposes. At the same time, in fairness to the landlords, mortgagees of houses controlled by the Act were prevented from increasing the rate of interest and restricted in their rights to enforce the security. This was the first comprehensive European enactment controlling rent; since then many other Acts have been passed in Great Britain, and of course, in other European countries.

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