The Scottish Government has set a further commencement timetable for the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 through the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, made under section 86(2) and (4) of the 2025 Act. The instrument was signed by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 October 2026, laid before the Scottish Parliament on 9 October 2026 and comes into force on 9 November 2026. The Regulations do not create a fresh housing regime in their own right. Their function is to switch on selected provisions of the 2025 Act in three stages: 9 November 2026, 1 April 2027 and 1 August 2027. Just as important, they set transitional rules that decide when new landlord penalties, damages provisions and local authority assessment duties actually apply.
The first commencement date, 9 November 2026, covers provisions listed in Part 1 of the Schedule to the instrument. The explanatory note highlights two immediate effects. One is full commencement of section 61(2), which gives Scottish Ministers a power to change the uprating index for mobile home pitch fees by regulations. That matters because section 61 had already been commenced in part for pitch fee increases on or after 1 April 2026, when the index moved from the Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Prices Index. The November regulations therefore complete the legal machinery for any later change to the index. The same tranche also brings section 74 into force, amending schedule 5 to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 so the Ombudsman can share relevant information with the new homes ombudsman created under the Building Safety Act 2022. Regulation 2(4) also makes clear that where Part 1 specifies a limited purpose, commencement takes effect only for that purpose.
The most operationally significant date for landlords and regulators is 1 April 2027. From that point, sections 16 and 17 of the 2025 Act come into force. According to the explanatory note, those sections create an enforcement route under which a local authority or the Scottish Ministers may apply to the First-Tier Tribunal for a financial penalty if a landlord fails to respond to an information request under section 14 or provides false information in response. The transitional rule is precise. Regulation 3(1) states that sections 16 and 17 apply only to requests for information issued under section 14(1) or (2) on or after 1 April 2027. Older requests are therefore outside the new penalty framework. The same April commencement date also activates section 59, which requires Scottish Ministers to publish an annual report on Housing First tenancies.
Section 32 is also brought into force on 1 April 2027. That provision amends the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988 by changing the calculation of damages for unlawful eviction. The Regulations then place a clear temporal limit on that reform. Under regulation 3(2), the amended damages rules apply only in relation to conduct described in section 36(1) or (2) of the 1988 Act where that conduct takes place on or after 1 April 2027. For landlords, tenants and advisers, the point is straightforward but important: the revised approach to damages is prospective. Liability will depend on when the relevant conduct occurred, not simply on when a case is raised or decided.
A third group of measures starts on 1 August 2027. Section 54 amends section 89 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 so that, when preparing a local housing strategy, a local authority must assess the provision of housing support services as part of that exercise. This extends the matters councils are required to examine when planning at local level. Again, the Scottish Government has avoided any backdating effect. Regulation 3(3) provides that the amendment applies only to assessments carried out under section 89(1) on or after 1 August 2027. The explanatory note also confirms that section 55 starts on the same date, changing the use of the term "abuse" in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and adding a definition of that term in section 43 of that Act.
The explanatory material places these changes in a wider legislative sequence. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 6 November 2025. Under section 86(1), Part 8 of the Act, covering sections 82 to 87 apart from section 85, came into force on the day after Royal Assent, while earlier commencement regulations had already activated other provisions before this instrument was made. That context matters because commencement regulations are often where the practical timetable becomes clear. This instrument shows that the 2025 Act is not taking effect in a single block. Instead, the Scottish Government is phasing implementation across different parts of the housing system, giving public bodies and regulated parties more time to adjust processes before enforcement duties begin.
For housing practitioners, the Regulations create three separate compliance checkpoints rather than one single commencement moment. November 2026 deals mainly with ministerial powers and ombudsman information-sharing. April 2027 introduces landlord information penalties, revised unlawful eviction damages rules and annual Housing First reporting. August 2027 adds new local authority assessment duties and updated terminology in the 1987 Act. The main legal point is timing. Landlords will need to track exactly when section 14 requests are issued, councils will need to align local housing strategy assessment work with the August 2027 start date, and anyone advising on disputes will need to test the facts against the transitional cut-off dates. The Regulations therefore do more than announce commencement dates: they draw the boundary between the old regime and the new one.