Member

On the rent-hike theory, a landlord seeking a justifiable rent increase would not need to go through the process and cost of eviction; they could simply seek a rent increase via the mechanism within the Bill. The need to evict a tenant at all is irrelevant. Turning to the mathematics—I will spare the House repetition of the calculations—a landlord leaving a property empty for just six months would, in order to recover their losses and get into profit, have to hike the new rent by more than 200% or 300%, and that of course would make the property completely uncompetitive in the rental market. In other words, a six-month penalty is more than sufficient to make the rent-hike strategy unworkable.