Legal action against Government’s lockdown evictions ban

The unlawful evictions ban constitutes the effective sequestration of private property and that goes against every tenet of a free democratic society: over a thousand years of English common law, the British Constitution built on individual rights set-out variously in Magna Carta 1215, the Petition of Right 1628, and the 1689 Bill of Rights, also known as the English Bill of Rights, not to mention the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950.
There are landlords who simply want to sell their properties in order to retire after providing free housing for many tenants for too long, we are being forced to carry on working past retirement age against our will, we have no peaceful enjoyment of our own properties, we cannot use the properties to house family members if wanted to, we have absolutely no control over our assets/property in a democratic society. We simply do not want to be landlords any more, but we have no choice but to carry on... There is no other business treated in this way by the government. If the government wants state ownership of private assets it will need to pay compensation at commercial value, they cannot steal our properties in order to house tenants that they have not provided housing for! The NRLA should be starting this action, and inviting all landlords to join in a class action against this Communist Conservative party. And we thought Corbyn and McDonnell would be bad for private landlords, this lot are a whole lot worse.

Am I getting this right, the JR was simply challenging the fact that the ban on bailiff enforcement was done by letter rather than through legislation? All that has been announced today by Govt is exactly that. Not sure it gets landlords very far?

Sadly I suspect by the time any review is sought those affected LL'ds will be bankrupt, long gone, or having sold up and jumped ship....My disgust at the Tory party's position on the rental sector in general is absolute-you couldn't make it up! Good luck and good to see some push back taking place.

Well, today we have had the government's response. They have passed the necessary legislation without even a draft before parliament, so it looks as if David Smith's claim for judicial review has galvanised them into action to at least put the guidance on a legal footing via statutory instrument. Legislation.gov.uk/public health (coronavirus) (protection from evictions and taking control of goods) England regulations 2020 claims to be made in response to a "serious and imminent threat to public health" which "by reason of urgency" bypasses the normal route through parliament. Leaves landlords in the same boat as introducing it via a letter of course, practically speaking.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 17/11/2020 - 01:00
You can read Giles Peaker's take on it here: https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2020/11/finally-lawful-non-evictions/

Reply to the comment left by Carol at 16/11/2020 - 17:46
Hi Carol, Best of Luck with your plight , Your not alone there are 1000`s of us facing constant payout I am having to pay section 21 Taxes on income I do not have. I have to pay full Council Tax on empty Properties, selective licensing fees to solve trumped up issues by councils in order to charge fees. Up grade perfectly good electrics in properties in a very short time. EPC upgrades , Spend a fortune in time and money trying to evict non paying and antisocial tenants who can run up un-necessary costly legal fees, with impunity in a possession process that is now taking years.

In response to Northernpleb. I am well aware that I am not the only one in this position. I would envisage it is a fair percentage of landlords. If I am reading the legislation correctly, we cannot evict tenants for non-payment of rent but the banks can during a repossession? LL's loose properties because they cannot evict tenants. I would love to sell but cannot get vacant possession. I tried to sell one property with the knowledge of the tenant who promptly refused to move and stopped paying rent. It is a flat so I am still having to cover the mortgage and management fees. I think we would know where we stood if we had a dictatorship rather than an incompetent government that is making LL's the sacrificial lamb. We are going to the slaughter, both financially and emotionally, with no way out. WE ARE NOT BEING HEARD OR GIVEN ANY HUMAN RIGHTS.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 17/11/2020 - 01:00
Every MP who didn't vote against the continuation of the Coronavirus Act and those who sat back and let all this happen should be impeached

Reply to the comment left by Kathy Evans at 17/11/2020 - 12:13Then there would probably be no one left to switch off the lights in the debating chamber!

Reply to the comment left by Carol at 16/11/2020 - 17:46
Thousands of tenants try to conduct their lives and financial situations in an honest and practical way, but thousands will, as a result of worrying about their financial situation including rent areas, will begin to suffer mental anxiety and other stress-related illnesses causing family stress to be heightened. Both the government and councils have been teaching tenants for years that it is an acceptable practice to go into debt and rent arrears and blatantly condone the practice of eviction by bailiffs! What sort of society are we breeding? This is short-term thinking, which puts enormous pressure and increases tenant anxiety levels to an intolerable level. It is inhumane of both government and councils to be imposing and enforcing rules that say it is acceptable not to pay or meet your financial commitments as a human being. There will be an 80%/20% ratio ie 80% will be decent human beings who want to honor their obligations and financial commitments, so this group of tenants will suffer enormous mental stress. Then there will be the other 20% who don't really care about honoring anything, and who possibly believe the world owes them, and it is usually the latter who make the most noise. But the authorities need to look behind that noise as to the ethos who live in that 20%. It is usually the latter that rules and regulations are made for! But the reality being created is that the government and councils are fueling and proliferating humans to live within a debt, lies, and anxiety-filled environment, with systems they have created which both exacerbate and definitely do not support a healthy person's moral integrity. Instead, their rulings fuel and breed immoral behavior and poor health. Then the government and councils attempt to make rules to control the immoral behavior and make the 80% suffer. The government and councils have short term thinking, they appear incapable of asking themselves the question, "what will this decision create in society?"