The Scottish Housing Regulator has published two new procedures that will give landlords and individuals new ways to challenge regulatory decisions.

The new procedures are available for regulatory decisions made from 1 April 2016 and follow extensive discussion and formal consultation over the last year.

The first new mechanism is a review process, which is a quick, straightforward and informal way to look again at regulatory decisions. The second is a formal appeals process for certain regulatory decisions.

Kay Blair, the Regulator’s chair, said: “I believe our new approach gives us a good balance. It widens the existing opportunities for challenge, and it also protects our ability to exercise our regulatory judgement. We’ve had a good dialogue over the year, which has helped us develop and adjust our ideas. I’d like to thank all those individuals and organisations who took the time to discuss our proposals and respond to our consultation.”

Formal consultation ran from mid-November until mid-January. There was very strong support across all stakeholder groups for the Regulator’s proposed review process, with 95 per cent of respondents agreeing with its proposal.

Overall, there was also strong support for the appeals proposals. Just over three quarters of respondents agreed, though there were some notable differences on views on appeals across stakeholder groups. The published procedures incorporate a number of adjustments from the consultation versions, to take account of stakeholder feedback.

The Regulator has also published an independent analysis of responses, a short document from the Regulator explaining its response to consultation feedback as well as individual consultation responses.