Government data challenges its own eviction claims

Reply to the comment left by Simon Kinzley at 13/07/2026 – 08:53
It was also designed ultimately to hand the keys to the rental market to corporate actors by the back door. But the official story by rent activist groups like GR (funded by the corporate sector) was that landlords were making money off tenants and using the money to outbid them for new property purchases, thereby forcing them to rent and hand over their hard-earned cash to further enrich greedy extractive landlords.

Of course that was largely poppycock, but the punitive taxation that came out of it did have the effect of stopping rental growth and pushing up costs and rents nearer to the levels that corporate providers needed in order to make a profit. And the support they brought in for first time buyers like the Help to Buy house price inflator swung the scales in the other direction.

Reply to the comment left by Peter Merrick at 13/07/2026 – 16:17
I would be really interested to know how you know that GR gets funding from big corporates.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Kinzley at 13/07/2026 – 17:11
You just have to look up where their funding comes from. For example, Lloyds runs its own corporate rental business but also funds the Renters’ Reform Coalition and a number of other groups. Nationwide (which used to be the biggest landlord in the country and is still a major BTL lender) funds a whole raft of tenant groups. Many of them would not have had the means to campaign so loudly and persistently without such large scale funding.

Also, look at who they do and don’t criticise. You pretty much never hear anything bad about social or corporate landlords, even though conditions in social housing are often very poor (think Awaab’s law) and corporate lets are expensive and can also be quite shoddy, especially some of those new-build flats and houses. Everything is aimed at private landlords, who have been relentlessly pilloried for acting perfectly reasonably and legally. Usually this has happened as a result of exercising their right to sell their property, but characterised as taking an almost dickensian delight in making people homeless.

Reply to the comment left by Peter Merrick at 13/07/2026 – 19:18
Good answer

Reply to the comment left by Simon Kinzley at 13/07/2026 – 19:37
It is a good answer and I agree with it.

In April the Guardian reported a flood of no-fault evictions ahead of implementation of the Labour Renters Rights Act quoting a London solicitor saying that no fault evictions (section 21 notices) were up four-fold on the previous year:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/30/late-flood-no-fault-evictions-ban-england-renters-rights-act

But neither this statistic alleging an increase in no-fault evictions, nor even the stats saying how many no-fault evictions were used annually, mean that most landlords were ABUSING no fault evictions. The Guardian report says that many buy-to-let landlords are concerned about having to cover their mortgage payments without rental income if their relationship with their tenant broke down. “People are scared. That’s why they’re doing the section 21 notices now, because it’s perceived to be quicker and easier than what’s coming.”

If that’s true, you can’t blame landlords for that because Labour refused to publish the results of its justice impact test on the courts:

https://www.property118.com/government-refuses-to-reveal-renters-rights-bill-court-impact-assessment/

Both conservative and labour governments have persecuted non-incorporated buy-to-let landlords, increasing their risk of letting out their properties, and the Labour Renters Rights Act has further increased the risk of taking on certain tenants. When you invest in property via a BTL mortgage you are taking a risk and if you take this risk both you and your lender need to KNOW that you can get your property back. The majority of landlords are small, non-incorporated landlords who have been prohibited from offsetting their finance costs against rents. Because of this persecution and also because a small BTL portfolio will be a larger proportion of a landlord’s net-worth, in comparison to a large, incorporated landlord holding a lot of properties in a limited company, these small landlords were subject to a DISPROPORTIONATE amount of financial risk even BEFORE the Labour Renters Rights Act came in. With the advent of the Labour Renters Rights Act in May these landlords needed to decrease their risk; either they needed to get their properties back immediately and sell, develop, move family members back in, or just leave the properties empty and pay the council tax if the risk of letting their properties under the new Act was just too high; and if deciding to continue to rent then going forwards these landlords needed to ensure that the risk is reduced: If you are operating outside of a limited company structure then as a landlord you only have three ways to do this – (1) do a far better job of screening tenants (i.e. DON’T HOUSE the high risk tenants) (2) put the rent up to maximum (3) hold a lot more personal financial information on the tenants you do house so that you can take action if the tenants default.

Under the Labour Renters Rights Act, in theory if you need to sell your property, develop it, or move family members back in then you have the right to repossess your property. Previously if no fault evictions were being used for the same three purposes then no-fault evictions weren’t being misused, or abused. In fact, any recent increase in no-fault evictions could easily have been mainly due to punitive tax policy.

Labour celebrated getting rid of no-fault evictions but the existence of no-fault evictions provided a back-stop….a fall-back that you could use in the event of a tenant failing to pay or the courts not working or in the case of tenants exhibiting anti-social behaviour. When Labour got rid of no-fault evictions they took all remaining powers that landlords have to act in the case of anti-social behaviour away from them. Labour increased the cost and risk of renting to the majority of tenants and they also placed provisions in the Labour Renters Rights Act that would mean that landlords and their agents would only be able to risk advertising at the top-end of market rent, thereby pushing market rent up.

The truth is that the Conservatives, SNP and labour have ALL pushed rents up: It is GOVERNMENT pushing rents up by interfering in the market and reducing competition….landlords are just being used as scapegoats.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 14/07/2026 – 11:24
I agree with all of that and think it’s high time we started to fight back.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Kinzley at 14/07/2026 – 12:52
The main way you can ‘fight back’ is to choose the most tax efficient route for whatever it is that you decide to do: So for example by thinking very carefully about EPC upgrades and instead think about what the highest after-tax return is likely to be.

You can also ‘fight back’ by introducing far more rigorous screening of tenants and by not housing the problem tenants: Just because the Labour Renters Rights Act says that you can’t ‘discriminate’ against benefits tenants it doesn’t mean that you have to house them.

You can ‘fight back’ by increasing your rents to market rents and reviewing them annually, even if you didn’t do it before the Labour Renters Rights Act, as I didn’t: In fact, other than introducing far more stringent criteria for screening tenants the law doesn’t allow you to do anything else to decrease your risk other than to increase rent to market rent.

For properties that are too risky to rent out but are still worth retaining for investment reasons you can ‘fight back’ by not renting them out and withdrawing them from the rental market.

As a landlord and the government’s whipping boy it’s unlikely that you can change any of this…it’s best to just view it as a game…a system you have to beat. Think hard about tax. As a landlord it’s not your fault that the system is corrupt and weighted against you or that somebody chose to make you a scapegoat for their [government] failures.

It is government that is driving rents up.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 14/07/2026 – 16:20
That’s rolling with the punches

Reply to the comment left by Simon Kinzley at 14/07/2026 – 16:47
You don’t make anything better by standing still and letting the tax man punch you.