The Housing Act 1988 essentially concerned itself with Private Rented Sector, and used to cover many of the UK legislation laws for this Sector.

The government has prepared these laws, by spending more than 250 hours, to make private renting sector much more efficient and fairer to the landlords. All the laws that got passed come under The Housing Act 1988 cover all the legal responsibilities and statutory rights for both tenants and landlords.

It’s quite common to see the conflicts between various clauses mentioned in the Tenancy Agreement and the statutory rights mentioned in the Housing Act. The main reason for this is that many notorious and novice landlords make several drastic modifications in these agreements without considering the statutory rights at all. If this type of case arises, the tenancy agreement is considered invalid, as the ruling law is the Housing act, and it cannot be overruled.

The Official Housing Act 1988 can be accessed online.

Since the time the Housing Act 1988 was introduced, many drastic revisions have been made to it; prominent revisions were added to the Housing Act 1996.