Yesterday was a genuinely unusual news day for this line of work — not because a regulation changed, but because the people who write the regulations all changed at once. Andy Burnham was confirmed as Prime Minister on 20 July, and by the evening he had reshuffled the two departments that between them set MEES, Renters’ Rights, Awaab’s Law and the entire retrofit funding pipeline. I’m going to spend more time than usual on personnel today, because for readers of this briefing the personnel is the policy. Then two stories that would matter on any other day: a court deadline landlords are colliding with this week, and a bond market that has already started pricing in what comes next.
New desk, same in-tray: what changes at Housing and DESNZ
Angela Rayner is back as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Miatta Fahnbulleh has taken over at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, according to gov.uk’s ministerial appointments list, published on 20 July as Burnham formed his first cabinet. Rayner replaces Steve Reed, whose departure Mortgage Solutions reports came with a resignation letter citing planning reforms and a housebuilding acceleration package for London. Fahnbulleh replaces Ed Miliband, who moves to the Foreign Office.
The detail that matters for this readership is the irony sitting underneath Rayner’s reappointment. As Landlord Today notes, she resigned from the same job ten months ago after underpaying £40,000 in stamp duty on a second home — a breach of the ministerial code the article describes as made “in good faith” and since settled with HMRC. She now returns to a department that, per Property118’s reporting elsewhere this week, is fielding a Prime Minister openly musing about scrapping stamp duty altogether. That is a strange brief to inherit twice.
On continuity: primary legislation doesn’t unwind because a minister changes desk. The Renters’ Rights Act, the MEES EPC C timetable for 2030 and the Awaab’s Law phase-two date of 30 November 2026 are all fixed in law or laid regulations, not ministerial preference. What does move with a reshuffle is pace on the things still in consultation — the Home Energy Model EPC metrics response among them — and political appetite for anything not yet legislated. On that score, the NRLA’s own assessment of Burnham is blunt: “rent controls, landlord licensing, more regulation” make for “bleak reading,” though the association also credits him with “a pragmatism and…flexibility” and says it has already written to his team.
Fahnbulleh is the more reassuring of the two appointments for retrofit continuity. She isn’t new to the department — she has previously worked inside DESNZ on consumer issues and electricity prices, which is a genuinely different starting point from a minister walking into the brief cold. I wouldn’t bet on the Warm Homes Plan or the ECO4 extension to December being reopened on her account. I would bet on every pending consultation response taking a few weeks longer while a new secretary of state gets briefed, which matters if you’ve got a client whose retrofit financing is sequenced around a government timetable.
Ten days left on the Section 21 clock, and the courts are struggling to keep up
Away from Westminster, the more immediate deadline for a lot of landlords is 31 July — the cut-off under the Renters’ Rights Act for issuing court proceedings on a Section 21 notice served before 1 May, as Burges Salmon’s briefing sets out. The same date applies to Section 8 rent-arrears notices served before commencement. Miss it, and the notice is unenforceable — the property reverts to being recovered as an ordinary periodic tenancy under the new grounds.
LandlordZone’s reporting this week makes the sharper point: submitting the claim on time isn’t the same as having it issued on time, and courts are under enough pressure that the two can diverge. Eviction specialist Paul Shamplina is quoted saying his “biggest concern is not just whether claims are submitted before 31 July, but whether they are actually issued by the court in time,” and the piece describes one adviser spending 55 minutes on hold with Croydon County Court chasing a single claim, plus a case misrouted between courts that let the original notice lapse.
If you’re a landlord who served a valid notice before 1 May and it has since expired, don’t treat “I filed it” as the end of the job — get a solicitor to confirm the claim has actually been issued, not just submitted, and do it this week rather than next. And if you’re relying on vacant possession from one of these cases to complete a sale, tell your buyer’s solicitor now rather than at exchange; a claim that stalls in the court queue can turn a tight completion date into an impossible one.
Burnham’s already talking about scrapping stamp duty — don’t plan your year around it
Burnham has previously called stamp duty “an incredibly unfair tax,” and his team is understood to be examining the Fairer Share campaign’s proposal to replace both stamp duty and council tax with an annual levy of 0.48% of a property’s value, doubling to 0.96% for second homes and overseas-owned property, according to Mortgage Introducer’s analysis. The worked example is telling: an average Kensington and Chelsea property, valued around £1.273 million, would move from roughly £3,287 a year in council tax to about £6,110 under the new levy — an increase of £2,823 annually, against London as a whole picking up an estimated £2.5 billion more in total.
Knight Frank’s head of residential research makes the objection I’d raise too: annual revaluations would “turn house price growth into an ongoing tax liability, which would inevitably affect decision-making,” which is a genuinely different behavioural effect from a one-off transaction tax you budget for once and forget. Mortgage Introducer’s own framing is the one to hold onto, though — this is “a medium-term conversation,” not a bill before Parliament.
My advice to anyone currently weighing whether to sell, buy or take on a second property: price this year’s decision on this year’s rules. A prime minister two days into the job floating a campaign-group proposal is not a policy, and treating it as one — delaying a sale on the hope stamp duty disappears, or rushing a purchase to beat a change that may be years off — is how people make expensive mistakes chasing certainty that doesn’t exist yet.
The bond market didn’t wait for legislation
Markets moved faster than any consultation could. The benchmark 10-year gilt yield rose 9 basis points to 5.04% on 20 July after Burnham signalled he would use “any flexibility” within the government’s fiscal rules, while the 30-year yield climbed to 5.75% — its highest in two months — and sterling slipped 0.27% against the dollar, per the Reuters market report carried by GuruTrade. Gilt yields feed directly into the swap rates lenders use to price fixed mortgages, which is why this is relevant to anyone with a completion date rather than a bond portfolio.
Mortgage broker Martin Rayner of Compton Financial Services, quoted in the same Mortgage Introducer piece cited above, puts the practical risk plainly: most lenders let you lock a rate three to six months ahead of your current deal ending, and “waiting until the political uncertainty blows over could see clients roll onto their lender’s SVR — and at 7.13%, that’s a very expensive place to sit.” Roughly 1.8 million UK fixed-rate mortgages expire this year, against an average two-year fix of 5.64% and five-year fix of 5.60%.
I’m not a mortgage adviser and won’t pretend to call where rates go next. But from where I sit — writing survey reports that sit inside purchase chains — a client whose fixed deal is due to expire is exactly the client who should be instructing a survey and pushing for an earlier completion date right now, not waiting for the political weather to settle. Every week of reshuffle drama is a week closer to whatever rate they reset onto.
What I’d actually do
- Have a live Section 21 or Section 8 claim from a pre-1 May notice? Get its court status confirmed as issued, not just submitted, this week — and flag any risk to a dependent sale immediately.
- Selling or buying this year? Price against today’s stamp duty rules. Treat the Fairer Share levy as a multi-year conversation, not a reason to delay.
- Fixed-rate mortgage expiring within six months? Lock a new rate now rather than risk landing on a 7.13% SVR while politics plays out.
- Retrofit or EPC plans tied to a pending government consultation response? Build in extra slack — a new secretary of state at DESNZ means a few more weeks of induction before anything pending moves.
- Landlord watching the licensing conversation? Burnham’s devolution deals are the more realistic near-term route to local rent or licensing experiments than any national policy — watch your own combined authority, not just Westminster.
If any of this touches your own plans — a survey ahead of a purchase you want to move quickly on, or a retrofit project you’re financing against a government timetable that might slip — the practice offers building surveys and PAS 2035 retrofit assessments across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 21 July 2026.