Green Party activists responsible for rent controls on Scotland have now slammed landlords who claim the number of rented homes is falling.

A survey by the Scottish Association of Landlords claims that 22,000 privately rented properties might have been lost to the sector over the 12 months. 

The survey also found the biggest reasons for the drop are hostility towards landlords from the Scottish Government along with concerns over proposals and increasing regulation in the sector.

The survey of SAL members was conducted in December to find out about the size of their rental property portfolios and how this has changed or will change over time.

Respondents had already withdrawn an average of 6.4 per cent of their properties from the sector: extrapolating across the whole private rented sector in Scotland this suggests around 21,760 or 6.4 per cent of 340,000 homes could have been lost from the sector in the last year.

SAL believes the drop in the number of properties available is the single biggest factor contributing to rising rent levels in the private rental sector and is a major factor in Scotland’s ongoing housing crisis.

Some 56 per cent of respondents are now planning to reduce their portfolio size while only nine per cent are now planning to increase their portfolio size.

However, Green Party activists claim this is at odds with the official landlord register, which shows the number of registered rented properties in Scotland has actually risen by 1.7 per cent in recent years.

Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer says: “It’s a sign of real desperation in the landlord lobby that they are reduced to claims that are at odds with the evidence. 

“Far from falling in number over the last 18 months as claimed, the number of rented properties has actually risen. It may well be that some landlords have taken properties out of renting but that has always been the case. Some come, some go. We need to look at the full picture.

“Over the last two decades, the response from landlord groups has been as predictable as it has been wrong. Each new regulation is greeted with claims that landlords will walk away, but the number of rented homes has grown from 120,000 pre-devolution to over 340,000 today.

“Across Europe, sensible balanced regulations work alongside healthy markets: better for tenants and better for responsible landlords. It would be so much better if landlords in Scotland got this too.”

The landlords association says the register reflects a long term number of rental properties – and hasn’t yet caught up with a high spate of sell-offs.