Introduction
1.These Explanatory Notes are for the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 which was passed by the National Assembly for Wales on 17 November 2015 and received Royal Assent on 18 January 2016. They have been prepared by the Education and Public Services Group of the Welsh Government to assist the reader of the Act. The Explanatory Notes should be read in conjunction with the Act but are not part of it.
2.The Act provides for most tenancies and licences conferring the right to occupy a dwelling as a home to be one of two kinds of ‘occupation contract’: a ‘secure contract’, which is periodic; or a ‘standard contract’, which can be periodic or of a fixed term. Most previously established statutory tenancies are abolished by the Act, being replaced by the appropriate kind of occupation contract. The Act also makes provision as to the terms of occupations contracts, and the setting out of those terms in a written statement of the contract.