One of the quieter but more important pieces of Scottish housing law this autumn has now been put on the clock. Shirley-Anne Somerville has signed the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, with the first changes taking effect on 9 November 2026. Made on 7 October and laid before the Scottish Parliament on 9 October, the instrument does not create a fresh housing bill. What it does is set the dates when parts of the 2025 Act move from statute book wording into day-to-day use, which matters to councils, landlords and tenants far more than the formal title suggests.

The timetable comes in three steps. Some provisions start on 9 November 2026, a larger set follows on 1 April 2027, and another group lands on 1 August 2027. That phased approach matters because the regulations also draw clear lines around what counts as a new case. In plain terms, several of the new powers only apply to requests, conduct or assessments that happen after their start date, rather than reaching back into older disputes.

The sharpest change for landlord enforcement arrives on 1 April 2027. From that date, sections 16 and 17 of the 2025 Act allow a local authority or the Scottish Ministers to ask the First-tier Tribunal to impose a financial penalty where a landlord fails to respond to an information request under section 14, or gives false information in reply. The transitional rule is important. Those penalty provisions apply only where the information request itself is issued on or after 1 April 2027, giving councils and landlords a firm legal start line rather than a muddled overlap with earlier cases.

The same April date also brings in section 32, which changes how damages are calculated for unlawful eviction under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988. Again, the rule is prospective only: the revised approach applies to conduct that takes place on or after 1 April 2027. Alongside that, section 59 is due to start on 1 April 2027 as well, placing a duty on Scottish Ministers to publish an annual report on Housing First tenancies. For campaigners and local services, that should mean a steadier public record of how one of Scotland’s best-known homelessness approaches is performing over time.

The next major step comes on 1 August 2027. Section 54 will amend section 89 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 so that, when councils prepare a local housing strategy, they must assess the provision of housing support services as part of that work. Here too, ministers have written in a forward-only rule. The change applies only to local authority assessments carried out on or after 1 August 2027. Section 55 is also set for that date, updating the use of the term “abuse” in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and adding a definition in section 43 of that Act.

A smaller but still notable set of measures starts sooner, on 9 November 2026. Section 61(2) is being brought fully into force, giving Scottish Ministers the power to make future regulations changing the index used for mobile home pitch fee uprating. The wider section had already shifted the uprating measure from the Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Prices Index for pitch fee increases on or after 1 April 2026. Section 74 also starts on 9 November 2026, allowing the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman to share relevant information with the new homes ombudsman created under the Building Safety Act 2022. It is the sort of technical amendment that can sound remote, but in practice it is about whether complaints bodies can pass on information cleanly when housing problems cut across more than one system.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 6 November 2025, and some parts of the Act were already switched on through earlier commencement regulations. This latest instrument is another piece of the rollout, rather than the whole story. For anyone working in housing, the message is straightforward enough. The next live date is 9 November 2026, but the bigger operational changes for landlord enforcement, unlawful eviction damages, Housing First reporting and council strategy duties are spread across 2027, with each one tied to specific future cases rather than old ones being reopened overnight.