Yesterday, 17 January 2018, the Government released a revised version of the How To Rent Guide. This should be used for all tenancies set up from today onwards. The point in law about if you gave the old guide to a tenant who moved in yesterday is not clear so we would recommend you re-issue the revised guide in case a tenant uses it in defence to a section 21 notice. There is no direct penalty for giving the guide a day or two late but it is much easier to remember to do it today than when you serve notice.
The link in the Universal Credit paragraph looks different (if you hover over it), but the redirection leaves you in the same place. On page three the reference to the London Rental Standard has been removed, since this scheme has been closed. The link to smoke alarms goes to a different place, and the carbon monoxide link goes to a .gov.uk address not the HSE website.
On page 5 there is an interesting change as the reference to providing the How to Rent Guide as a link has been replaced by a reference to providing it as a PDF in an email. The option for a link is no longer mentioned so one has to wonder they now doubt this is sufficient. The link to the Energy Performance Certificate has changed. They have retained the misleading comment about not needing one for an HMO (when you will often need and EPC for and HMO!). The link to repairs on page 6 was no longer working on the Feb 16 guide and has been updated. The link to gas safety has been updated too.
On page 7 the link to Shelter has changed but leaves you on a page with the same content and has changed presumably due to Shelter updating their site. This applies to the deposit link further down the page too. The link to Citizens Advice on page 8 has changed but takes you to the same page. The “forced out illegally” link on the page goes to the revised structure of the Shelter website (“get advice” has been replaced by “housing advice”) and this affects the link to “right amount of notice”. Finally at the bottom of page 8 the name has changed from the Department for Communities and Local Government to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All this is from a quick stare and compare and not a word by word comparison. Since most of the changes are to links that probably changed a long time ago it is tempting to be cynical and wonder if the guide was changed due to the change in the department’s name! As we are expecting other changes to come in in April this may not last as long at the last version.
The new guide can be downloaded from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent. You might like to consider keeping older versions in case you need a copy.
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