The Scottish Parliament passed the Housing (Scotland) Bill on 30 September 2025. This archive report retains its original October 2025 publication date and was checked against official sources on 16 October 2026.
What the vote covered
The Scottish Government's announcement described a package addressing homelessness prevention and standards in rented housing. It included powers for ministers to introduce a long-term rent-control system.
The announcement also described duties for certain public bodies to ask about people's housing situation and act to prevent homelessness, alongside further powers concerning hazards in rented homes.
Passage and implementation are different
The parliamentary record confirms that the Bill subsequently became an Act on 6 November 2025. That later milestone is included here as an explicitly reviewed update, not as something that had already happened on the archive's original publication date.
A vote approving legislation does not by itself establish that every provision is operating for every tenancy. Commencement, further regulations and the scope of a measure need to be checked separately.
Check the rule relevant to the property
For a practical decision about a Scottish tenancy, identify the property, the type of tenancy and the particular issue before looking for the applicable rule. Consult current official guidance and obtain advice where needed.
Do not apply a headline about Scottish legislation to a property elsewhere in the UK. Nor should an archived report of a parliamentary vote be used on its own to calculate a permitted rent increase.
The September vote remains an important policy milestone, while individual rights and obligations depend on the detailed rules in force.