Theresa May announces she will ban section 21

Reply to the comment left by Handson Landlord at 21/04/2019 - 07:42
Two months notice either side is standard in a "contractual" periodic (as opposed to a "statutory" that arises by default after the fixed term), but you would normally have to agree it at the outset. However, asking a tenant for two months notice is less "marketable" and quite restrictive on the tenant.

Reply to the comment left by Paul T. Guest at 22/04/2019 - 12:18Once the tenancy is periodic the tenant can break on one month's notice. The landlord needs to give at least two months' notice and serve a s21 notice. Experienced landlords will be aware of the pitfalls in trying to serve s21 notices. It also seems likely that the government will abolish them shortly.
At the moment the landlord cannot serve a s21 before 4 months of the tenancy have elapsed so cannot end the tenancy before 6 months.

Reply to the comment left by Paul T. Guest at 22/04/2019 - 12:18
From our own experience decent tenants have no issue with giving 2 months’ notice to a landlord.

After the initial 6, 9 or 12 months tenancy, nor do they mind signing additional blocks of 3 months up to a year new tenancy.

Everyone knows where they stand and less uncertainty/voids to landlords and associated admin allows rents to be competitive, despite all the increased legislation and other bans that have been brought in.

Banning Section 21 will bring an end to how many landlords have effectively and fairly management their rentals, with their decent tenants fully on board and happy with the arrangements.

The Government are taking tenants’ rights to far (based on flawed media and charity campaigns) and it can only lead to more decent landlords leaving the market and driving rents up for tenants, so ultimately not helping them in the way that it should.

Reply to the comment left by Piers Calascione at 15/04/2019 - 09:29
Exactly my thoughts. Especially where rooms are let individually one year and the property as a whole the next depending on demand. One tenant deciding to stay could scupper the whole joint contract !!

Reply to the comment left by Valerie Legenza at 24/04/2019 - 11:01
"One tenant deciding to stay could scupper the whole joint contract !!" Indeed they could. So long as liability is joint and several then the stayer would be liable for the whole rent.

However, if that person gave notice and left in December the LL has lost a letting to the new cohort of students for the academic year.

That said, I let out a house to students for 14 years and never had that problem.

The law provides zero protection for landlords against this sort of behaviour. Parliament may review this some time in the 42nd or 43rd century.

Scathing article in the Telegraph by Professor Bourne. Below are a few excepts, nothing we didn’t know, but it’s good to see them in a newspaper rather than just on landlord websites:

“Under plans open for consultation, the Tories would abolish Section 21 notices. It’s sadly unsurprising that Tories would not take a principled stance in favour of individual property rights and free contract….. The less charitable interpretation is that, unwilling to address broader housing market supply dysfunctions, they want to set up a landlord bogeyman to send a political signal to tenants.

The Conservatives risk creating severe problems in the private rented sector. One feature of post-1989 housing policy, including the birth of fixed-term “assured short-hold tenancies”, has been entry into the market of huge numbers of individual landlords owning a small number of properties.

Under the Government’s plan, they could get stuck with a difficult tenant, or locked out from accessing their own property.

The results of this policy are therefore obvious to anyone who understands basic economics. First, landlords will be far less likely to rent to tenants they consider high-risk. The incentive to engage in serious vetting, demanding extensive guarantees from tenants, will skyrocket.

Second, fewer landlords will remain in the sector and new, potential landlords will be less likely to consider it an attractive investment. All this reduced supply will, of course, raise rents further.

We might expect this sort of dumb policy from Labour. But the Conservatives, who facilitated the modern rental market by reversing anti-landlord regulations that eviscerated supply to a rump through the Fifites to Eighties, should understand the need for good microeconomic policy.” 

Ryan Bourne holds the R Evan Scharf chair for the public understanding of economics at the Cato Institute

https://www-telegraph-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/26/no-fault-evictions-ban-epitomises-paucity-tory-economic-thinking/amp/?amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2019%2F04%2F26%2Fno-fault-evictions-ban-epitomises-paucity-tory-economic-thinking%2F

Sunday Politics London featured Section 21 today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004prn/sunday-politics-london-28042019

The programme starts with the housing shortage in London, and 15 minutes in there is a piece about the abolition of Section 21 which asks whether it will cause a reduction in supply of rented accommodation.

Disappointing that the Tory MP said that S 21 causes homelessness, echoed by the Green AM.

Good contributions by John Stewart, Policy Manager of the RLA

Why does section 21 cause homelessness? It can only be because you are a rogue tenant in my books because anyone else can just find another property and there is a surplus of rented property in London where I live not a shortage. If you can pay the rent and pass the referencing why would you not be able to find another property?
Are there statistics to back up this statement, ie has anyone done a survey with homeless people to find out why they are homeless?

Reply to the comment left by Marie at 03/05/2019 - 10:09
Hi Marie

Section 21 does not cause homelessness, and Shelter knows it. https://www.property118.com/shelters-website-says-section-21-not-cause-homelessness/

Unfortunately its CEO keeps lying about it on TV. Heather Wheeler repeated the lie in debate about Section 21 Evictions last December. She made the shocking statement “The Government acknowledge that the end of an assured tenancy in the private rented sector can cause homelessness”.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-12-06/debates/21A6B725-C6F7-4A0A-8BE9-D839A5C8D3BB/Section21Evictions

That is like saying that someone’s unemployment was caused by his dismissal. If an employee is dismissed for theft, the cause of his unemployment is the theft, not the dismissal letter. If a tenant is evicted for not paying the rent or for damaging the property or for anti-social behaviour, one of those is the cause, not the Section 21 form.

Shelter knows the real causes of homelessness:
https://m.england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns_/why_we_campaign/tackling_homelessness/What_causes_homelessness

And Shelter knows why the homeless can’t obtain another tenancy: “the most important reason, is the shortfall between housing benefit and the cost of private renting”
https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/policy_and_research/policy_library/policy_library_folder/research_shut_out_households_at_put_at_risk_of_homelessness_by_the_housing_benefit_freeze

To answer your last question, the JRF interviewed tenants in a few of Shelter’s branches, and found that the reasons were:

“Changes in welfare benefits have combined to make rents unaffordable to benefit claimants in many areas.
As a result, tenants on low incomes are being evicted because their benefits do not pay market rents, and they are unable to afford alternative homes in the private rented sector, or access social housing.”

However, someone from Generation Rent shamelessly hijacked the project and turned the findings into an attack on Section 21.
https://www.property118.com/poverty-evictions-forced-moves/