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Propertymark: Scottish housing plan misses PRS opportunity



A new housing strategy by the Scottish government has been criticised for failing to address issues in the country’s PRS.


Propertymark has welcomed the strategy’s focus on several areas of action around Scotland’s housing ‘emergency’.

This includes growing a ‘voids and acquisition fund’ by £80m this year to allow councils to bring more empty homes into circulation.

Some measures have been levelled at the PRS — such as raising the standard and quality of rented homes through Awaab’s Law and the introduction of a long-term system of rent control to support affordability — but the Propertymark has called for more to be done.

In particular, Propertymark has called for more to be done to support individual private landlords.

“New social rented sector housing completions are down by 26% and the SNP Government continues to fail to recognise that most private rented sector homes are provided by individual landlords who are being disincentivised to stay in the market or invest as housing providers because of burdensome legislation and damaging rent control measures,” said Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark.

“If the Scottish government is serious about bringing down the cost of renting, then Scotland needs a taxation system that allows for housing mobility and where landlords can invest in improvements without having to raise rents significantly and pass costs on to tenants.”



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