New rent freeze and other measures introduced by Scottish Government to support tenants with the rising cost of living in new Programme for Government

Scottish Government have launched their Programme for Government 2022 – 2023 with a focus on measures to help with the cost of living crises.

Among the measures, the Programme confirms that emergency legislation will be passed to protect tenants (including PRS tenants) by freezing rents and imposing a moratorium on evictions until at least 31 March 2023. Action is to be taken to prevent immediate rent increases. In addition, from November, the minimum at which arrestments can be made on tenant's bank accounts will be raised to £1,000.

The Programme doesn’t provide the practical detail of how these new measures will work in practice, although this will become clear soon as the draft legislation works its way through various stages of the Scottish Parliament's process before becoming law.

If you have any queries on this please contact Jenna Monteith.