Section 21 changes

Last week this blog looked at the problems of the proposal to scrap “no-fault” Section 21 evictions could cause for the rental sector that. The government proposes to effectively make tenancies open-ended, while strengthening the rights of landlords who want to recover their properties by giving the Section 8 process more teeth. Getting this right will make or break the planned change in the law.

Get it wrong and the government risks seriously damaging the rental sector–which is already struggling to meet the demand for housing. The average time it takes for a private landlord to repossess a property via the current system is nearly four months, according to data from the Ministry of Justice published in Landlord Today last week. This is completely unacceptable. All landlords know that eviction of any kind is a last resort. And even official figures point to the fact that the landlord, not the tenant, ends only 10% of tenancies. All other things being equal, they have a better investment with a long-term tenant where there is no void rent loss and less move-in, and move-out wear and tear.

But there are legitimate reasons a buy-to-let landlord may need to evict someone when they have a change of circumstances and an efficient court process must support that situation. In Scotland, where court reform was rolled out before scrapping their equivalent of Section 21, the new regime seems to work. So paying attention to Section 8 will be vital if the new regime is to be fair to landlords and to tenants.

There has been a strong reaction to the government’s plans from the lettings sector, with over 6,000 people responding to the Residential Landlord Association’s survey asking what a post-Section 21 private rented sector should look like–a record response for the trade body. The RLA survey closes today and the results will respond to the government’s formal consultation when it is launched, so go to the RLA website at https://rla.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/possession-reform-ensuring-landlord-confidence-apr-may to have your say.