Rent Act 1977

4 (1) This paragraph applies where—

(a) a tenancy of a dwelling-house has become a protected tenancy by virtue of section 18(1) of the 1974 Act or by virtue of subsections (1) and (3) of section 15 of this Act, or a statutory tenancy is imposed by virtue of paragraph 1 above; and

(b) immediately before the tenancy became a protected tenancy or, as the case may require, immediately before the tenancy referred to in paragraph 1(1) above came to an end, section 84 of the 1972 Act or section 89 of this Act applied to the rent of the dwelling-house let on that tenancy.

(2) In this paragraph " the regulated tenancy " means the regulated tenancy consisting of the protected or statutory tenancy referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(a) above, together with any subsequent statutory tenancy which, when taken with that regulated tenancy is by virtue of section 18(2) of this Act treated for the purposes of this Act as constituting one regulated tenancy.

(3) Subject to the following provisions of this paragraph, section 89 of this Act shall apply to the rent of a dwelling-house subject to the regulated tenancy.

(4) Section 89 of this Act shall cease to apply by virtue of this paragraph to the rent of a dwelling-house—

(a) on the date on which a rent is registered for the dwelling-house under Part IV of this Act; or

(b) on the date on which a new regulated tenancy of the dwelling-house is granted to a person who is neither the tenant under the regulated tenancy nor a person who might succeed him as a statutory tenant.

(5) If and so long as, by virtue of this paragraph, subsection (2) of section 89 of this Act imposes for any rental period of a tenancy or statutory tenancy a rent limit below the rent registered for the dwelling-house as mentioned in subsection (1) of that section,—

(a) the contractual rent limit shall be the rent limit so imposed and not the registered rent (as provided by section 44(1) of this Act) and section 93 of this Act shall apply in relation to the tenancy as if it were one to which Part VI of this Act applied; and

(b) a notice of increase under section 45(2)(b) of this Act may not increase the rent for any statutory period above the rent limit so imposed, and any such notice which purports to increase it further shall have effect to increase it to that limit but no further.