Councils should not tell tenants to stay in property during eviction process claims government

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Clarke at 25/04/2026 – 12:18
I agree that it should not be down to Landlords to compel local authorities to comply with their statutory duties. But as the relevant local government scrutiny and oversight bodies are seemingly reluctant to do their respective jobs…
The threat of a JR is still feared by housing options teams.
Perhaps NRLA should be looking more closely at these statutory failings by local authorities to comply with their duties…

This is how it will unfold.

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 already gives qualifying leaseholders a right of first refusal to buy the freehold, with serious consequences for freeholders who fail to comply, including criminal conviction and an unlimited fine.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2026 will depress capital values for properties let under Housing Act 1988 tenancies. The next step will be to graft a similar right of first refusal onto assured tenancies, giving tenants the opportunity to buy before a landlord can sell elsewhere. Government will not describe that as forcing a sale at a depressed value. It will say the price merely reflects the property’s current regulatory burden.

If the tenant cannot, or does not wish to, buy, the right will then be extended to councils, allowing them to acquire those properties at the newly depressed values and grant the tenant a statutory lease.

The model is self-financing. Lenders will readily fund councils where the borrowing is backed by council and government guarantees.

It also solves another political problem. Councils must meet their statutory housing obligations, and housing policy already favours spreading social housing tenants through private estates rather than creating obvious ghettos. This will allow councils to meet those duties while quietly creating the council estates of the future inside existing private developments.

A masterclass in socialist thinking — and possibly the last chance to serve section 21 notices.

Reply to the comment left by REB at 22/04/2026 – 10:07
Interestingly, I made an FOI to the Ombudsman about How many complaints they”d receied for each of last three years about Councils telling Tenants to remain after receiving a Section 21 notice ( whether that complaint was from a Tenant or Landlord )
Guess what the response was ;

We don’t break down complaints by that category – Don’t hold that Data !

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 25/04/2026 – 16:32
I think that this right of first refusal only applies to landlords holding the freehold on long-leasehold flats when they sell their freehold:

https://www.taylor-rose.co.uk/posts/property-right-of-first-refusal

I don’t think that it applies to freeholders who hold some other property within a freehold where there is one or more long-term leaseholds under the freehold.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 27/04/2026 – 15:20
While the right is most commonly exercised by long leaseholders, the definition of a “qualifying tenant” under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, as amended by the Housing Act 1996, specifically includes regulated tenants under the Rent Act 1977.

The Housing Act 1988 introduced assured shorthold tenancies, but the Renters’ Rights Act 2025/6 reinstates tenants to a position much closer to that which they enjoyed before the Housing Act 1988. It follows that the next logical step is to reinstate the right of first refusal for tenants more widely, just as it remains available to qualifying tenants who still hold tenancies under pre-1988 legislation.

Extending the right of first refusal is already being promoted in Scotland. When the government amends the Renters’ Rights Act 2025/6 to extend that right to all tenants, it will gain access to 9 million voters and will be able to claim that it has met its 1.5 million new homes pledge six times over. I can hear Matthew Pennycook’s gleeful announcement now.

At the same time, they will blame the development industry for failing to build 1.5 million new homes. It will put Labour back into power for another five years.

This is, and always has been, about politics, not economics. That is why the government refuses to engage meaningfully with the property industry at every level. Property industry voices failed to see that this is an ideological shift which, for political purposes, makes perfect sense.

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 27/04/2026 – 22:33
A right of refusal isn’t the same as a right to buy, or right of access to a bidding process such as a sealed-bids system like the one they have in Scotland.

I don’t have any problem with tenants having access to a sealed-bids system. I can’t see anything in the Renters Rights Act that would stop me getting rid of a tenant if I needed to sell, move family members back in, or develop the property. In fact, as far as I can see, if I need to do any of these three things I should be able to get the property back in 4 months.

Of course, if that were to change, I would just need to get rid of tenants earlier.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 28/04/2026 – 14:20
You are right to say that it is not a right to buy, although there is no obvious reason why the right to buy a council house could not be extended to private tenants, given that the regulatory mechanism has been in place for 46 years since 1980.

However, the regulatory burden of the new Renters’ Rights Act 2025/6 will depress capital values and limit the market. Landlords are faced with selling with vacant possession, but if they do not achieve their target price, the property may sit empty for a year, attracting double council tax or more. If they breach the conditions of Ground 1A, fines can be up to £40,000. That creates a strong incentive to sell with the tenant in occupation, which in itself limits the property’s appeal to other investors.
Sales agents dealing with investment properties sold with tenants in occupation commonly start at sale prices discounted by around 20% against open-market vacant possession value. That wipes out the last five years’ average house-price growth, according to the UK HPI for England.

The Government’s direction of travel is to get rid of the PRS and turn it over to large portfolio landlords using offshore funds to build co-living apartment blocks and massive build-to-rent schemes.

If PRS landlords want to remain at the lower end of the market with tenants who don’t have other housing options, they will effectively be acting as unpaid council housing officers. And, if it becomes politically expedient, there is nothing to stop rent controls being reintroduced — they were in place until 1989, and many politicians are once again floating the idea. At the moment they are just running the flag up the flagpole to see how many salute.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 28/04/2026 – 14:20
As a further follow up please see the article published by Property118 just six hours ago. The first three paragraphs say it all. And once this mechanism is embedded Rent Officers as part of the Valuation Office Agency will move in to regulate increases.

“The Guardian is reporting that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is considering imposing a year-long rent freeze on landlords as a special measure to alleviate the cost of living crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

This will be debated by the government as a package of measures to reduce inflationary pressures on household budgets. The Treasury responded by saying it would not comment on ‘speculation’.

It would be far easier and cheaper for the government to legislate on landlords than tackle the rising cost of fuel, food and mortgage rates.”

This is the contempt with which the government treats landlords. They don’t care that landlords have to pay for the rising cost of fuel, food and mortgage rates too.

What other industry would strive to work in the face of these attacks. 2015 brought in the section 24 tax on turnover and it’s been an attack ever since.

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 28/04/2026 – 16:04
If you mean the one about Rachel Reeves introducing a rent freeze I’ve already noticed it. Although Scotland has already proven that rent freezes and rent controls drive rents up in the UK, just as they do in the rest of the world.

So let’s see…Band D property…Rachel introduces a rent freeze for the next twelve months. Good time then to evict the tenant, do the necessary upgrades to Band A, then re-let the property at at 20% increase in rent because it’s a band A property and that’s what the government wants you to do anyway. In 12 months time from the imposition of the rent freeze market rents are going to be shooting up anyway, just as they did in Scotland.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 28/04/2026 – 16:21
I admire your positivity, but look back at the history books.

Regulated rents were set at about one-third of market rent. Regulated rents, in the form of what the Government now describes as “affordable” or “social” rents, already apply to developers through affordable housing requirements. This means a developer can be forced to sell a £600,000 property for, say, £274,000 to a registered social housing provider so that someone can move in at an “affordable” or “social” rent.

The Government started with affordable rents but then created social rents to lower the cost further. In time, the PRS will come under the same sort of attack. It will simply be presented as bringing the PRS into line with development obligations.

In the 1970s and 1980s, landlords were unable to raise rents even though all the rent, and more, was swallowed up by regulatory and repairing obligations. Landlords could not afford to heat their offices.

The PRS keeps missing the point by trying to use an economic argument. This is an ideological shift, and the Government accepts that it may have to destroy a sector in order to bring it, effectively, into public ownership.

Socialist governments see this as recreating the council house estates of the future, where very few will own. Blair wanted a client state, and that is where we are heading — and we are already a good way there.

Governments now take as much as they can through taxes and regulation, and then give back targeted allowances. Do we really want to live in an economy where people queue for housing benefit, fuel allowances, discounted train tickets, and the like?