Commentary on provisions of Act Section 23: Reduction in social housing rents
This section requires that in relation to each relevant year registered providers of social housing must reduce the rents payable by their individual tenants by at least 1%. Subsection (1) provides that reduction is calculated by reference to the amount of rent that was payable by the tenant in respect of the preceding 12 months.
	Subsection (2) clarifies that if a tenancy comes to an end after part of a relevant year or, if the rent reduction requirement no longer applies to the tenancy, then there will be a proportionate reduction in the maximum amount of rent payable.
	Subsection (3) makes special provision for determining the amount of rent payable in respect of the 12 months preceding the first relevant year. Its effect is that, for the purposes of calculating rent payable during the rent reduction period, social rents will be reduced from the rate that applied on 8 July 2015 (the date of the summer budget when the rent reduction measures were announced), or an alternative "permitted review day" with the consent of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Consent to use of an alternative "permitted review day" might, for example, be sought by a provider who, on 8 July 2015, had not yet implemented its 2015 rent increase. The Secretary of State’s consent can be given individually or be in the form of a general consent (subsection (4)).
	Subsection (5) makes clear that for the purposes of calculating the rent payable in the first relevant year a tenancy existing on 8 July 2015 is to be treated as having been in place for at least 12 months before the first relevant year.
	Subsection (6) sets out what is a ‘relevant year’. There are four relevant years commencing from 1st April 2016. Generally, this is a year beginning on 1st April, however, where a private registered provider's rent year for the majority of its tenancies commences on another date then the rent reductions may be applied from that date instead.
	Subsection (7) qualifies subsection (6). It provides that a private registered provider’s practice as regards its tenancies should be determined by reference to its practice as regards to tenancies of its social housing in the year ending 31 March 2016.
	Subsection (8) clarifies that a private registered provider with the practice referred to in subsection (6) is not obliged to use that alternative relevant year provision, but may instead use a year commencing 1st April as its relevant year.