30^th Jul 2018

According to the Ministry of Justice's latest data, on average landlords in England and Wales have to undergo a period of seventeen weeks before they can finally evict 'rogue' tenants.

Research carried out by an insurance company shows that once a court application for an eviction has been submitted, it takes an average of 118 days before bailiffs can enter the property and carry out the eviction.

The Ministry of Justice's data highlights that it takes an average of 6.9 weeks before landlords are granted an order for tenants to be notified to vacate the property.

The majority of tenants issued with notices tend to stay put and it then takes a further 3.2 weeks for a possession warrant to be granted. Upon the warrant being issued, there is a further 6.8 weeks before the bailiffs can go in and take back possession of the property, which amounts to a grand total of 16.9 weeks.

The insurance company's study reports that landlords with properties in London were the more likely to undergo the eviction process. The regions where landlords had the lowest number of eviction are the South West, North East and West Midlands.

The MoJs data shows that in the last year only 6,280 of the 21,429 possession claims resulted in bailiff's evictions. The data has been made public for the first time ever and helps landlords become aware of the areas with the most cases of eviction, as the figures are broken down by population and region, and the potential risks they are or could take.

Tom Cooper, of the insurance company, said that in spite of high profile eviction cases grabbing the public's attention, numbers of evictions across the private rented sector is still extremely low, with 0.5% of landlords having to bring the bailiffs in.

He does point out that eviction's legal costs are on average £1,700 to £2,000 and the loss on rental income, repair and maintenance costs will easily far outweigh the landlord's 'judiciary' costs.

Cooper said:"Just looking at lost rent, there are few landlords who can afford to lose up to six months’ worth, the time it takes for a tenant to go into arrears, for them to issue a Section 21 notice, and then for them wait 17 weeks to see the court process through".

The study also found that 27% of failed claims for court orders occurred because proper procedures were not carried out correctly; average insurance payments for eviction support was £4,341.22, which covered loss of income and legal costs.

He finished by saying:"We know that rent arrears are high up on the list of landlord worries. Possession claims by private landlords have risen by 3.5% in the last two years. Over the same period we’ve seen a 61% increase in take-up of rent changes try to mitigate the risk of repossession."

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