8^th May 2019

A trade body is outraged by the Government’s proposal to scrap Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions that will lead to tenancies lasting for an indefinite period.

The Section 21 notice was introduced to help landlords regain their properties if they either wanted to move back into the property or to sell it. The trade body has always stated that it is necessary to offset the extremely slow and costly Section 8 process, this is when a landlord has to go court to take their property back if a tenant has breached their tenancy agreement.

Research conducted by YouGov with a total sample size of 3,088 landlords in England and Wales on behalf of the trade body in December 2018, found that 11% of landlords in the last five years had sought possession because their tenant was in breach of the tenancy agreement.

22% had to resort to using Section 21 or Section 8 notices.

The Government’s figures from its own English Housing Survey - Private Rented Sector 2016/17 , shows that 90% of tenancies are ended by the tenant and in most cases of tenancies being ended by landlords was solely down to rental arrears.

A spokesperson for the trade body said: “Landlords currently have little choice but to use Section 21.They have no confidence in the ability or the capacity of the courts to deal with possession claims quickly and surely, regardless of the strength of the landlord’s case.

"England’s model of tenancy was always intended to operate in a sector where Section 21 exists. This change makes the fixed term meaningless, and so creates a new system of indefinite tenancies by the back door.

"The onus is on the Government to get this right. It’s entirely dependent on the Government’s ability to re-balance the system through Section 8 and court process so that it works for landlords and tenants alike. The Government should look to Scotland, where they reformed the court system before thinking about changing how tenancies work. If the Government introduces yet another piece of badly thought-out legislation, we guarantee there will be chaos.”


News Archive »