4th
Nov 2016
The anti landlord and lettings agent pressure group Generation Rent is now demanding that the government must immediately stop lanldords and lettings agents being able to use section 21 to evict 'rogue' tenants.
A blogger on the group's website wrote:"A tenant can pay the rent on time every month and otherwise behave impeccably, and yet still be asked to leave with two months’ notice, with no appeal and no help. The influence that house prices have on the level of evictions utterly refutes any claim that tenants are adequately protected.
"We are calling [on] the government to reform the rental market to give tenants better protection from eviction and greater stability in their home, and encourage landlords who are committed to providing long term homes – instead of investors who will sell as soon as the price is right".
The latest cause for the group's attack on the private rented sector is that recent research claims that the number of section 21 evictions has increased over the last few years.
The group proudly proclaims that the research undertaken by an Oxford academic, states that evictions have risen at the same rate as house prices.
The group said: "If prices are rising, then landlords are more likely to decide to sell and evict their tenants in order to do so. When prices are falling, landlords are less likely to try to sell and more likely to retain their rent-paying tenants. There is a consequent downward pressure on rent levels. This pressure reverses following an increase in evictions".
It highlights that evictions and house prices started to fall in the first three months of 2008, stats taken from the Office for National Statistics data.
The group claims that: "House prices began their ascent first, in the second quarter of 2009. Evictions then followed, picking up again in the fourth quarter of 2009. And again, the rental index lagged behind — bouncing back only in the third quarter of 2010".
It backs up its claim as the number of S21 eviction rose to 16,441in 2015 comparing it to the market lowering of house prices in 2009, when there was just 4,963 cases.
One blog claims that :"A 10 percent increase in house prices is on average associated with an increase in evictions of over 60 per cent in a given local authority".
Richard Merrick says : "There is no mention of other contributory factors of lower wages, increasing population and the impact of Universal Credit. It cannot admit that more and more tenants are failing to their pay rent and in many cases it is because they won't rather than can't.
"I am sure that the government will treat this as nonsense."
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