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Housing charity Shelter has expressed its opposition to a provision contained in a new proposal by the Welsh Government which aims to reform tenancy law in its country.

The Renting Homes Bill proposes that all existing tenancies will convert to either a standard contract' or a secure contract', both of which will explain in clear terms to landlords and tenants what their rights and responsibilities are. Shelter welcomes this in principle.

The Welsh Government states that private renters will have a similar level of security under the standard contract as they do now under the Assured Shorthold Tenancy. However, one major change - opposed by Shelter - is the proposal to remove the six month moratorium which currently protects tenants from eviction during the first six months of their tenancy.

Shelter claims this will enable private landlords to offer tenancies with no fixed term

at all - giving tenants in Wales a level of security of tenure that is lower than in any other country in western Europe, claims the charity.

A statement from the charity says: It is important that new tenancies start off with a probationary period. Potentially, this period could be fixed term or monthly periodic. What is unacceptable, though, is the prospect of households languishing with no fixed term indefinitely - a situation which in our view the Renting Homes Bill, as currently drafted, actively encourages by providing for contracts to be periodic from the outset.

We would not oppose the removal of the moratorium if the Renting Homes Bill ensured that any initial probationary period would end after a specific length of time - ideally six months. Landlords should be required at that time to offer a fixed term, which tenants would have the right to accept or not. We also argue that the length of that fixed term needs to be established in statute, as is the case in many European countries - three years in France; four years in Ireland; three or four years in Spain. Within that period

tenants should be able to end the tenancy with two months' notice.

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