Rent controls are typically designed to tip the balance of power back toward tenants. They promise stability, but history shows, the reality can be far more complex. What really happens when rent controls are introduced? In Scotland, we’ve already seen how the story unfolds.
The introduction of rent controls in Scotland during the Covid pandemic has left Scottish tenants more likely to see their rent increased than their counterparts elsewhere across Great Britain. This suggests that any attempt to artificially set rents in other parts of Great Britain is likely to prove counterproductive in the longer term.
Scotland operates under a different set of regulations from those in England. In 2022, the Scottish Government capped rent increases for existing tenants at 0%, a freeze that lasted until April 2023. From April 2023 to April 2024, the cap was raised slightly to 3%. Since April 2024, rent increases have been limited to the lowest of:
- The open market rent
- The rent proposed by the landlord
- The ‘permitted rent’, where the tenant is paying at least 6% below market rate
On paper, these measures were designed to protect tenants. In practice, they’ve had some unintended consequences.
The current law in Scotland can limit the scale of rent increases, particularly for tenants who are paying significantly below market rates. But instead of stabilising rents, the controls appear to have encouraged landlords to raise rents more frequently.
Hamptons’ latest data shows that 67% of Scottish landlords increased rents in 2025, compared to 58% across Great Britain. That’s the highest share of any region. They’re now opting for small, regular increases to keep tenants closer to market rates.
For those landlords who did raise their rent, the size of the average increase was lower in Scotland (10.1%) compared to the Great Britain average (12.2%). Nevertheless, Scotland's overall average rental growth is higher as a greater share of landlords in Scotland chose to increase rents over the last year.
Since June 2025, the pace of rental growth on new lets has picked up in Scotland, despite rents falling across Great Britain. Scottish rents rose by 2.5% from the same time last year, one of only two regions in Great Britain where rents rose by more than 2% over the last year.
On closer inspection, since the 3% cap was loosened in April 2024, rents on new lets in Scotland have risen 7.3%, a rise which is second only to the North East of England. Over the past five years, newly agreed rents in Scotland have increased by 36%, compared to 32% across Great Britain. In fact, Scotland is one of only two regions in Great Britain where newly let rents rose by more than 2% over the last year.
There’s talk of introducing ‘Rent Control Areas’ in Scotland from 2027. In simple terms, this would mean that landlords in hotter rental markets could only increase rents by a set limit each year—roughly in line with the cost of living (CPI), plus a little extra (1%). For example, if everyday prices went up by 5%, landlords might be allowed to raise rents by around 6%.
The idea is to stop rents from jumping quickly, but experience from Scotland shows that longer term, these rules can have unexpected effects. Rent control policies often end up triggering the very outcomes they were designed to avoid.
