In 2012 the then coalition government gave social landlords in England discretion to charge near market rents to tenants with high incomes. In 2015 the Conservative government announced that it would extend the policy to make it mandatory although they subsequently decided to make it voluntary for housing associations. The policy has been dubbed ‘pay to stay’ and was included in the Housing & Planning Act 2016. However, the regulations that are required to enact the policy have yet to be made. The purpose of this briefing paper is to summarise the situation as it currently exists.