FHDC Renters’ Rights Policy Wasn’t Ready When Tenants Needed It

Most private landlords had until midnight at the end of Sunday 31 May to give tenants the official Renters’ Rights information sheet. By Monday morning, FHDC didn’t appear to have an adopted new civil penalties policy in place — only a forward-plan item saying one was still heading to Cabinet.

By Monday morning, the deadline had gone.

Across Folkestone and Hythe, most private landlords and letting agents should already have given existing tenants the official Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026.

Not a link.

Not “it’s on GOV.UK”.

Not a landlord’s own friendly summary, with the difficult bits quietly sanded down.

The actual government document.

For some tenants, it’ll have arrived in an inbox and been forgotten by breakfast. For others, it won’t have arrived at all. And that’s where this stops being a Westminster story and becomes something much closer to home.

Because if you’re renting in Folkestone, Hythe, New Romney, Hawkinge, Lydd or anywhere else in the district, the question isn’t whether ministers announced a new law.

It’s whether anyone local is ready to enforce it when your landlord doesn’t do what the law says.

The information sheet matters because renting isn’t an equal conversation. One side usually holds the keys, the contract, the repair timetable and the power to make life uncomfortable. The other side may be trying to keep a roof over their head in a market where moving isn’t easy, cheap or sometimes even possible.

So, no, one PDF won’t fix the private rented sector.

It won’t dry a damp wall. It won’t make a landlord answer quicker. It won’t bring rents down. It won’t stop a letting agent sending one of those polished little emails that looks harmless until you read it twice.

But it does tell tenants where the new legal line is.

The government says most existing tenants had to be given the official information sheet by 31 May. It says landlords and agents must provide the exact PDF, either as an attachment or in printed form, and that simply sending a link doesn’t count. Failure can mean a civil penalty of up to £7,000.

That’s not a polite nudge in a landlord newsletter. That’s a legal duty with a price tag.

And if the sheet never came, the next question is obvious: who’s going to do anything about it?

Locally, that answer is Folkestone & Hythe District Council.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is now live. Key private rented sector provisions came into force on 1 May 2026. Government guidance says it’s the duty of every housing authority in England to enforce the new tenancy-system rules in its area. That means FHDC. Which makes the local timing hard to ignore.

On Monday 1 June, the day after the deadline had expired, there wasn’t a clearly visible adopted new FHDC civil penalties policy on the council’s website telling tenants, landlords, councillors and officers how the new Renters’ Rights regime would be enforced locally.

What there was, instead, was a new item in the Cabinet forward plan.

“Private Sector Housing Civil Penalties Policy.”

The council knew this was coming. Its own forward-plan entry says key parts of the Renters’ Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026, and that new statutory guidance meant FHDC had to publish a fresh civil penalties policy. The proposed decision was first made public on 13 May and was due to go to Cabinet in June. But by the time landlords’ first big deadline had passed, the policy still wasn’t visibly adopted. The named officer contact was Adrian Hammond, Housing Lead Specialist. Above him sits Gill Butler, Head of Housing. Around the Cabinet table, political responsibility sits with Cllr Rebecca Shoob (Green), Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness.

       

That distinction matters.

A forward-plan item isn’t an adopted policy. It isn’t a complaint route. It isn’t something a tenant can rely on when they’re sitting at the kitchen table wondering whether the missing information sheet is worth reporting.

It says something is coming.

But tenants needed the route before the deadline passed, not after it.

That’s the gap.

And in housing, gaps aren’t harmless. They’re where rights often vanish.

A tenant may know something’s wrong and still stay quiet. Not because they’re foolish. Not because they don’t care. Because they understand the balance of power perfectly well.

They know repairs can slow down.

They know the agent’s tone can change.

They know a rent conversation can appear from nowhere.

They know a landlord doesn’t have to write the word “retaliation” for the message to land.

That’s why FHDC’s first response matters.

If a tenant says, “I never got the Renters’ Rights sheet,” the council shouldn’t treat that as loose paperwork. It should treat it as a possible breach of a live legal duty.

There’s room for judgement. Of course there is. A landlord who makes a genuine mistake, puts it right quickly and co-operates isn’t the same as one who ignores the law and hopes the tenant won’t know better.

But judgement isn’t drift.

The national civil penalties statutory guidance says councils don’t have to issue informal warning letters before taking formal action. It says they should consider deterrence, punishment, tenants’ interests and whether the landlord gained from failing to comply.

So yes, sending the sheet late may help a landlord’s case.

It shouldn’t wipe the breach away.

A late PDF isn’t a time machine.

That point needs making early, because the first cases set the tone. If landlords learn that a missed deadline only earns a friendly reminder, some will treat the law as optional until caught. If tenants learn that complaints produce little more than a quiet word, many won’t bother again.

That’s how new rights die.

Not with a big vote in Parliament.

Not with a repeal.

Quietly. Locally. In the gap between “you can complain” and “nothing much happened”.

FHDC’s existing Private Sector Housing Enforcement Policy dates from 2021. It deals with important work: housing hazards, HMOs, smoke alarms, electrical safety, energy efficiency and empty homes. That work still matters, but it wasn’t written for the Renters’ Rights Act regime now coming into force.

The new Act reaches into a different part of renting: the daily paper trail between landlord, agent and tenant. Information sheets. Notices. Pressure to leave. Rent bidding. Discrimination. Emails. Texts. Adverts. Screenshots. WhatsApp messages.

A 2021 policy can’t be made current by squinting at it.

FHDC’s wider Corporate Enforcement Policy is newer. It says the council can take firm action where people break the law. It also says policies can be reviewed sooner when legislation changes.

Well, legislation has changed.

Not next year. Not when the Cabinet cycle feels neat. Now.

There’s also a telling line in FHDC’s 2026/27 fees and charges schedule. It still refers to a “proposed” £40,000 upper limit following the Renters Rights Bill. But by 1 May 2026, the Bill wasn’t a Bill any more. The first relevant provisions had begun coming into force.

That may look like dry paperwork. It isn’t.

In housing, paperwork is where people find out whether they’re protected or on their own. If public documents lag behind the law, tenants are left guessing. Landlords are left guessing. Officers are left interpreting. And confusion rarely helps the person with less money, less security and less power.

Other councils appear to have moved earlier. Portsmouth had Renters’ Rights Act decision paperwork in March. Rushcliffe now publishes a 2026–2031 housing enforcement policy with a Renters’ Rights civil penalties appendix. Charnwood told Cabinet its earlier policy wasn’t fully compliant with the Act and needed updating and did so on the 7 May.

FHDC is moving now. That’s something.

But moving after the first deadline has passed isn’t the same as being ready when tenants needed it.

What’s needed now isn’t another dense council document written as if its natural habitat is a governance board. It’s a simple local route people can actually use.

Where do tenants complain?

What evidence should they keep?

Will FHDC accept screenshots, emails, texts, adverts and WhatsApp messages?

What happens after a report is made?

When will the council advise, and when will it enforce?

How will tenants who fear retaliation be protected?

How will residents know whether the new powers are being used?

That doesn’t need a forest of officer language. One clear web page would do. Plain English. No fog. No “stakeholder journey”. No flowchart that looks as if it escaped from a corporate away-day.

Just the route.

And that wouldn’t be anti-landlord. It’d be anti-chancer.

A decent landlord who follows the rules shouldn’t be undercut by one who treats the law as something to worry about only after being caught. If one landlord gives tenants the official sheet, follows the notice rules and refuses to play games with rent bidding, they should expect the council to act against those who don’t.

The national record gives FHDC no comfort. The Guardian reported last year that two-thirds of English councils hadn’t prosecuted a single landlord in the previous three years, and that fewer than 2% of tenant complaints led to formal enforcement of any kind. Generation Rent warned that a new law without enforcement is just empty words.

That warning now has a Folkestone and Hythe postcode.

The Renters’ Rights Act has landed. The first information-sheet deadline has passed. FHDC’s public record shows the new civil penalties policy was still heading towards Cabinet after that deadline, not already sitting there as an adopted local enforcement route.

That conclusion is uncomfortable, but it isn’t complicated.

On 1 June, the public record didn’t show Folkestone & Hythe District Council ready with the adopted policy tenants needed.

And responsibility for that wasn’t floating somewhere in the council ether. The forward-plan entry names Adrian Hammond Housing Lead Specialist, as the lead officer. Political responsibility sits with Cllr Rebecca Shoob, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness.

By the time the first practical Renters’ Rights deadline had passed, the policy they were bringing forward was still just that: being brought forward.

Not adopted.

Not visibly in place.

Not ready for the tenant who never received the sheet and wanted to know what the council would do next.

FHDC can still fix this. It can adopt the Association of Chief Environmental Health Officers (ACEHO) model policy, publish a plain-English complaint route, explain what evidence tenants should keep, say when it’ll advise and when it’ll enforce, and report the numbers so residents can see whether the new law has teeth.

But the council shouldn’t pretend the gap wasn’t there.

Rights don’t become real because ministers announce them.

They become real when the local council is ready before the tenant needs it.

On the first test of that readiness, FHDC’s public record speaks for itself.

Seen something the public should know about? Send tips, documents or concerns to TheShepwayVoxTeam(at)proton(dot)me. You can contact us in confidence, speak off the record in the first instance, and help us follow the evidence where it leads.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime