Landlords not to blame for rising homelessness – OFFICIAL!

New data challenges the media narrative that landlords evict tenants on a whim with the number of Section 21 evictions decreasing from this time last year.

According to government figures from Statutory Homelessness in England, the number of households at risk of becoming homeless is not just down to Section 21 evictions, but also a rise in households leaving Home Office asylum support accommodation.

Local authorities have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to help people threatened with homelessness.

The government survey for Statutory Homelessness in England lists two legal duties and uses these for the figures in the survey:

Prevention duty: Local authorities may deliver their prevention duty through any activities aimed at preventing a household threatened with homelessness within 56 days from becoming homeless.

Relief duty: The relief duty is owed to households that are already homeless on approaching a local authority, and so require help to secure settled accommodation. The duty lasts 56 days and can only be extended by a local authority if the household is not owed the main homelessness duty.

Does not paint a full picture

According to the government figures, whilst there is a suggestion of Section 21s remaining a factor in homelessness, it does not paint the full picture.

The figures show that 6,640 households were threatened with homelessness due to the serving of a Section 21 notice to end an Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

However, this is actually a DROP of nearly 2% from the same quarter last year.

Other factors reveal a much higher rise, showing that landlords are not to blame. Instead, there has been a huge increase in households required to leave accommodation provided by the Home Office as asylum support, rising by nearly 50% to nearly 2,000 (1,920) households.

One of the most common reasons for those owed a prevention duty was family or friends no longer willing or able to accommodate, accounting for 8,890 or 23.6% of households.

Overall, the number of households assessed as at risk of becoming homelessness, and therefore owed a prevention duty, is down 4.5% compared to the same quarter last year, to 37,610.

Landlords selling up due to legislative changes

The survey also reveals that, in January to March 2025, the ‘end of private rented assured shorthold tenancy (AST)’ accounted for 13,790 households, or 36.7% of those owed a prevention duty.

This number has decreased by 7.7% compared to the same period in 2024 and now represents a smaller proportion of prevention duty cases.

The most common recorded reason for households being owed a prevention duty due to the end of an AST was the landlord wishing to sell or relet the property, 8,950 households in total. Of these, 6,520 were due to landlords wishing to sell, and 2,430 due to landlords wishing to relet.

The data does not specify why landlords wished to sell, but this challenges the media narrative of landlords evicting tenants on a whim. It simply may be landlords selling up in response to legislative changes rather than actively evicting tenants.

PRS is not the main driver

Whilst the figures reveal the most common type of accommodation at the time of application for those owed a prevention duty was in the private rented sector (43.2%), this is down 9.1% from January to March 2024 to 16,240 households.

The proportion of households in the private rented sector owed prevention duty also fell by 2.2 percentage points.

This shows the private rented sector isn’t the main driver and one of the most common reasons for those owed a relief duty was due to domestic abuse, accounting for 7,110 or 15.5% of households owed a relief duty.

The most common type of accommodation for households owed a relief duty was living with family (10,460 or 22.8% of households), which has gone up by 0.2 percentage points compared to January to March 2024.

Of households owed a relief duty, 13,470 households were homeless due to family or friends being no longer willing or able to accommodate them, down 5.5% from the same quarter last year but accounting for a similar proportion of households owed a relief duty (29.4%).

Temporary accommodation reaches record levels

The data also reveals that the number of households in temporary accommodation has reached record levels.

According to the figures, 131,140 households were in temporary accommodation on 31 March 2025, up 2.6% from the previous quarter and up 11.8% compared to the same time last year.

Among these households, nearly 169,000 dependent children were living in temporary accommodation.