Is anyone aware of the very recent Changes to the Renting Homes Wales Act. As of the 26th April 2023 Welsh Government published a number of amendments to the fundamental terms of these contracts.
The legislation is in draft but set to come into force on the 1st June.
Where a substitute occupation contract arose between December and May 31st the landlord must provide the written statement of that replacement contract. According to the NRLA "The Government expects landlords to issue a written statement for the contract that existed on the 1st December even if that contract has since been replaced."
I don’t feel at all supported by Open Rent regarding this. It would help all landlords in Wales who used the original Open Rent AST if their lawyers put together a written statement that can be used. The consequences of getting it wrong is high. https://senedd.wales/media/yefdwdvs/sub-ld15797-e.pdf
I’m still chasing down a template for this and time is ticking. I don’t understand why OpenRent doesn’t support this transition. Has anyone got any ideas what I need to do to convert my current standard fixed term contract to a written statement?
My other thought is, the current fixed term contract for my tenants end early August, is it easier for me to risk a couple of months with no written statement and renew the contract with OpenRent and they should have an up to date format then? Seems a lot of hassle to cover myself for a couple of months especially if the tenants are quite happy where they are and have been living there for coming up to 2 years with no issues.
Thank you for your feedback. All landlords who have set up a tenancy using our Rent Now service since the Renting Homes (Wales) Act came into force will have been provided with a contract that is fully compliant with the new legislation.
For landlords who had set up ASTs via Rent Now prior to the legislation coming into force on 1 December 2022, we will be sending out an email in the coming days to remind landlords of their responsibilities and provide details on how OpenRent can help.
If you have further questions, please do reply to that email when it arrives or else contact our support team for further assistance.
Thanks for your reply to this thread, I went onto the FAQ to see how to issue existing tenants with the new Welsh contract but there is nothing there. It may be worth putting a short explanation as to what is happening.
As I understand it the process is straight forward and the contract can be downloaded from the government website, but it will make things a lot easier to have a contract aligned with the OpenRent AST that can be sent out from the system.
I do hope the latest contract available on WAG website is not still written in Klingon…I am struggling even with the OpenRent version (which is now 30 pages long -compared to about 8 before)…where does that leave us …if your tenant wants a periodic tenancy not a renewal OpenRent ? How much notice to they have to give LL and iI am presuming it is still 6 months minimum for LL ?
HELP
Was going to set up new contracts for all my tenants. However WAG have now said (in recent days) that conversion contracts must be in place for everyone, for the period between 1st dec 2022 and 31st May 2023, which is a right pain at this lare date!!
OpenRent have promised updates ‘nearer the time’. However there now is NO TIME LEFT for us landlords to get everything in place, and be compliant by the 31st May!!!
They seem to think we can create extra working hours overnight or something!
I know its been a mess on WAGs part but, after being with OpenRent happily, for 10 years, I am feeling very let down by their total lack of member support on this MAJOR ISSUE.
Have sent queries to them (OpenRent) to ask about the conversion contracts, but just get generic replies every time.
Feeling very.panicky now…and frustrated and angry
Please sort this out OPENRENT.
COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTED!
feel exactly the same as you @Maria69 .
I just dont know why someone at OpenRent can’t go through their ASTs with a solicitor, and draft conversion contracts for us, so that we xan send electronically.
I also want to do a rent review but dont know how i can do this, in line with thw guidance (frustrating that it’s still listed as ‘Guidance’ too. All sounds very woolly to.me’).
I have just sent this feedback to them, after the generic reply that I received to my query (and that took over a week to arrive too!)…
OpenRent… I asked a question about the Welsh Conversion Contracts. The deadline for this to be done is the 31st May!!!
Obviously it’s going 5o take time for us landlords to get the contracts drafted, signed up and in place, by this date.
I received a reply to my enquiry saying that info would be sent out shortly. How long is shortly? There is no time left for us, to be compliant with the date!!
Please acknowledge and send the conversion contracts, so that our tenants can sign in time.
Hopefully they will listen and produce some action in next couple of days, or I may be taking my business elsewhere. NRLA are trialing similar FYI .
well I have spent literally days trying to use the openrent occupational contract and getting myself into quite a state about it trying to align different documents. The NRLA have issued templates that can be used to include the situation when the fixed term rolls onto a periodic which is my situation prior to renewing with Open rent to a new Occupational Contract in April 2023. The problem is the different terminology and cross references. There are phrases in the Open rent document unique to Openrent and the numbering is different to the NRLA template. It is so easy to make a mistake.
I agree that guidance is not enough. I chose to use Openrent to ensure everything from a legal perspective was watertight but realise now I should have used the NRLA from the start. Openrent should manage this within their system! After trying to work on this through the night and just checked my messages I feel a lot more supported knowing I’m not the only person feeling this way.
Agree with @Vivien3@Maria69 time is ticking, can OpenRent please support the conversion contracts? We are literally 2 weeks away from the deadline.
I’ve stated before that my current tenants fixed contract expires August this year. I’m seriously contemplating bypassing the conversion contract altogether and just wait for it to expire to issue a new fixed contract that complies with Wales to avoid the stress.
Robert, still no e-mail regarding this and the deadline is less than 2 weeks away. Do you have an estimate date on when you can issue support guidance? Thanks
An email is going out right now to all landlords who set up a tenancy in Wales before December 2022 and haven’t notified us that the tenancy has ended, nor renewed the contract since. This should serve as a warning and guide that you need to take action, and affected landlords should receive it shortly.
We suggest landlords simply renew any pre-Dec 2022 tenancies on the platform as that’s the simplest solution. However, we also have added some guidance and a fixed term converted occupation contract template to our help centre here:
This has been put together in co-ordination with our legal council to aid landlords in the fixed term who don’t want to renew their contracts.
If you have any additional questions @Robert should be able to point you in the right direction, but hopefully for any Welsh landlords unsure of the next steps our email, help centre article, and template (if needed) will be of assistance to smooth this transition. Hopefully it’s clear we’re doing our best to assist landlords with this, but we are restricted based on both the way this law has been brought into force and it’s somewhat unhelpful text.
Yes @Maria69, I’m finding it all extremely stressful.
I really thought that OpenRent would do the right thing, and pat their legal team to draft an accompanying conversion contract for their own tenancy agreements. I’ve waited and waited, as you have, thinking that it would be coming…but it hasn’t. Very disappointed, worried, and frustrated. Just trying to work out if i can easily move everything across to NRLA in time now.
Also feel really let down by open rent on the conversion contracts.
I’ve decided to use NRLA and their contracts in the future. I won’t be letting through open rent again. It’s a shame, as until this occupation contract issue, I was happy with open rent.
Can you clarify what it is about our guidance (also linked to above) and email that you aren’t satisfied with?
Our legal team spent significant time (and at significant cost) compiling that document to help landlords, along with our automated renewals system, so their shouldn’t be any issues for Welsh landlords. So I’m just not sure what we’ve missed as your comments aren’t very speciifc about what part of the free renewals process, or free converted occupation contract template, that you’re not happy with. Without clear feedback it’s hard for us to improve / do better here.
The renewals part is okay @Daz, although there was no clear guidance about whether or not we should have been doing renewals, conversions, or both, from the outset.
Every time I emailed OpenRent i received a very generic and unhelpful reply, just pointing me back to the website (which i had obviously read countless times), which was of no help whatsoever! The reaon i was emailing was for clarification, of course!
I have been told by NRLA , and by Training for Professionals (who advise and train Rent Smart Wales) that , as well as any renewal of contract, we definitely need to send out conversion cotracts, the 1st dec 2022 to 31st May 2023. However, OpenRent advice contradicts this.
The Conversion Template is also very generic and will take a considerable amount of time to complete, for those of us who have a portfolio of properties.
Given that those using OpenRent rent regularly, will be using your tenancy agreements, it is my view that your company should have paid a legal team to provide a universal conversion contract that we could use online to convert all/any of the Welsh tenancies that are affected.
I really dislike the fact that it is impossible to speak with anyone, directly, al OpenRent. The call centre are useless, as they are just passing messages, which never get answered, as tge get lost in translation.
You have gone from providing an excellent service, to no service at all…just a website.
Sorry if this seems harsh, but that’s how it feels from a landlord’s perspective.
The conversion template provided is not ‘oven ready’. It will require a lot of time to complete and I am not confident to essentially partially draft a legal agreement as I am not a lawyer.
I would have been willing to pay for a conversion contract as described by Vivien above.
