Tenants face being unfairly evicted ‘every 15 minutes’ this summer – claim

Tenants face being unfairly evicted ‘every 15 minutes’ this summer – claim

0:03 AM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago 36

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A tenant activist group is making a wild claim that renters face being unfairly evicted from their homes this summer because of Government inaction.

The claim is being made by Generation Rent which says that the delayed Renters (Reform) Bill will lead to ‘unfair evictions’ despite a government pledge to outlaw them.

The group says that since 2019, when the Government first proposed ending Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, nearly 61,000 s21 court proceedings have been started by landlords.

This has led to landlords ‘turfing tens of thousands of families out of their homes with no need to give a reason’.

‘Make sure that renters can stay in their homes’

Ben Twomey, chief executive of Generation Rent, said: “We are calling on the government to act now to schedule the Renters (Reform) Bill‘s Second Reading debate as soon as possible when Parliament next sits and to make sure that renters can stay in their homes with their rights fully protected.”

He adds that ‘no more summers should be ruined by unfair evictions’ despite a promise made by the Government ‘to outlaw arbitrary evictions’.

One Section 21 claim made every 15 minutes

Generation Rent has calculated that there will be one Section 21 claim made every 15 minutes over the six-week summer holiday.

And that could see ‘potentially 3,787 unfair evictions before children go back to school and Parliament reconvenes’.

The group says that tenants have no ability to challenge a valid section 21 notice so ‘many more move out before their case reaches court’.

It adds that as many as 90 Section 21 eviction notices could be issued every day over the summer holidays.

‘Many families will no longer be able to afford to rent’

Mr Twomey said: “Recent soaring rises in rents on new tenancies mean that many families will no longer be able to afford to rent near their children’s schools if they are evicted.

“Delays in Parliament are leading to despair across the country.

“Urgent action is needed to end unfair evictions and Generation Rent will keep not stop campaigning until renters are protected.”

The group is urgings its supporters to contact their MP to not only back the Bill, but to help bring it before Parliament as soon as possible.


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Comments

Stella

13:44 PM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Trapped Landlord at 18/07/2023 - 13:18
Fairness does not exist for landlords.
A couple who have rented a property from me for a number of years recently decided to buy and they could not understand why nearly every property they viewed was owned by a Landlord who was selling up.
Generation rent and shelter remind me of turkeys voting for Christmas.

Robert Johnson

13:44 PM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Markella Mikkelsen at 18/07/2023 - 10:38
Yours are typical I would say, calling it no fault eviction and it's interpretation is the problem. There's always a reason why so body is evicted and it very rarely ends up with a landlord fininacially better off than had the tenant just stayed and paid their rent in the first place.

Without the reasons why a section 21 was issued (which we will never know) these statistics are meaningless, other than to bash landlords with.

Chris @ Possession Friend

14:13 PM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Robert Johnson at 18/07/2023 - 13:44If government were the slight bit interested in finding out reasons, they could have done a trial for a year, where landlords put the reason on the Section 21, tenants had a space to reply to it in their defence, but that it made absolutely no difference to the legal outcome.
Fact is, Govt have been dis-incentivising Sec 21 for a decade, by adding it as a caveat to every piece of legislation enacted.

Rod

15:25 PM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Markella Mikkelsen at 18/07/2023 - 10:38
Hi Markella

Not sure how much progress you'll make with the NRLA, but iHowz would love you to share your examples.
iHowz are having conversations with parliamentarians who are sympathetic to our campaign to make serving S21 fairer for tenants who have met the terms of their tenancy over several years, while allowing us to retain the proven S21 route to recover our properties.

https://ihowz.uk/the-unintended-consequences-of-losing-the-section-21-notice/

As has been said here, and was highlighted at the recent DLUHC committee hearing on the RRB, S21 has acquired the name "no fault" when it is a process where no fault is required to be given in order to make it less acrimonious. Posters in this thread and the Committee both highlight the fact that removing S21 will not remove the risk of eviction, it will simply be done via the more cumbersome S8 route, with miscreants collecting a CCJ as a token of our new fairness.

S21 gives renters the legal right to challenge the notice for landlords to commence recovery of their property and requires evidence of landlord compliance before court action.

It would be better if tenant groups focussed their efforts on the truly unfair, illegal evictions carried out by ill-informed or simply unscrupulous owners and agents.

In my experience, when tenants threatened with illegal eviction have contacted tenant groups, they provide basic information before pointing the tenant in the direction of their council and citizens advice.

Martin O'Hearne

15:33 PM, 18th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Markella Mikkelsen at 18/07/2023 - 10:38
And herein lies the problem. Instead of Gove pulling data from Landlords, or better still, doing a S21 snapshot survey of a selected number of Courts (it would be an easy exercise to ascertain the grounds), he fell for the emotive term “no fault eviction”, which played right into the hands of the anti-landlord groups. But where has this Bill disappeared to? maybe someone in Westminster with a modicum of common sense has managed to get a hold of it and locked it in a safe space or better still, set fire to it, but more likely the Government have realised their almighty mess up and are happy to hand this very hot potato over the Sir Keith !!

Smiffy

8:15 AM, 19th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Parmeader shinh at 18/07/2023 - 09:49
No, it's NOT YOUR RULES!

It is UK law that existed probably before you even "invested"!

S21 is NOT for non payment of rent, S8 is.

Smiffy

8:17 AM, 19th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Markella Mikkelsen at 18/07/2023 - 10:38
Highlighting exactly what is wrong with the system, using S21 to short-circuit evicting for true reasons.

Shinh

8:20 AM, 19th July 2023, About 10 months ago

That's the issue too much interference buy uk laws on good law abiding landlords.ie 99%
They need to focus on their own stock first and set an example

We invested 1990s years ago before these rules came about.

The government should focus on more pressing matters like health care, feeding/ sheltering the less fortunate in the current climate and travel infrastructure which is out of date.
Where is the rogue tenants database ?
we are ok with developing one if there's funding available

Smiffy

9:14 AM, 19th July 2023, About 10 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Parmeader shinh at 19/07/2023 - 08:20
it's questionable whether using S21 to evict for arrears and damage is "law abiding".

Section 8 is there for those purposes, evicting using S8 and getting a CCJ for the arrears/damage indirectly creates the rogue tenant database you seek.

You can't let off one tenant easily, then moan when the next tenant turns up CCJ free and pulls all the same stunts!

S21 needs to be reformed and we should support it, but in return for a faster, efficient, S8 process.

Shinh

9:23 AM, 19th July 2023, About 10 months ago

I agree with the assessment of this rogue database baseline.
GDPR prevents access to the vital information which can then be complemented by those tenants who did not go through the legal process for eviction ie property abandonment...

How do get access to this info

Naturally s21 no fault evictions would be excluded for the obvious reason.

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