Rent assessments conducted by Rent Officers: FOI release

Information requested

Please provide any internal policy, guidance, or statistical data regarding the use of Let Agreed versus advertised only properties in rent assessments conducted by Rent Officers. Additionally, please provide the percentage of rent determinations made in the past 24 months that relied on one or more properties not confirmed as Let Agreed.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Rent Officers conduct rent assessments for various tenancy types and must comply with the statutory requirements laid down by the relevant legislation relating to their role and the type of rent assessment, including and not restricted to:

The Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997 as amended.
The Rent Officers (Universal Credit Functions) Order 2013 as amended for Housing Benefit work, including Local Housing Allowances.
Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 for Scotland, and most recently.
Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016

The total number of rent determinations made by Rent Officers for the period 31 July 2023 to 30 July 2025 is 11,516.

Rent Service Scotland (RSS) publish a list of Private Residential Tenancy properties valued by Rent Service Scotland, along with the comparable properties used in their assessment, this list is available here Private Residential Tenancy: rent adjudications - gov.scot. RSS, also publish a list of Fair Rents decisions that Rent Officers have made for regulated tenancies since the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 was introduced, this list is available here Check the register of fair rents for tenancies set up before 1989 - mygov.scot

RSS do not have the breakdown or percentage for the date range requested. Section 34 of the 2016 Act and Statutory Instrument 2017/296 – Regulation 2 states Rent Officers have a duty to make information available, that information is the rents they have taken into account in determining the open market rent. The detail that is required to be made available is the general location and description of, and the amount of rent payable in relation to, that property. There is no requirement for information on Let agreed or not Let agreed, to be made available.

RSS publish Private Rented Sector statistics annually, the full report can be found here Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2024. In the latest year to end September 2024, an estimated 80% of Rent Service Scotland Market Evidence records were based on advertised rents, with the remainder being based on transactional data received from letting agents or landlords. Note that it is likely that a proportion of the transactional data received will also relate to recently advertised rents, where the records received relate to tenancies which have only been recently advertised or let.

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