The Government has announced that they intend to abolish the no-fault eviction ground for Landlords under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.
This (if it happens, which sounds probable – as the Labour party have similar plans) will be a major shakeup of the private rented system and could affect the future of housing and housing supply significantly.
I propose to write a series of posts on this blog exploring the various aspects of the proposals to remove the section 21 eviction process and look at the positive and negative aspects. However, in this very first post in the series, we will be looking at
The Background to Section 21
This will involve looking at the history of the Private Rented Sector (PRS), much of which is lost and forgotten in the mists of time. So maybe it is time to remind ourselves of our past.
As you will see, section 21 has played a major part in the development of our current system.
So let us first look at:
The Early Legislation
Before the 1914-18 war, most people lived in rented accommodation (around 80% of households) and the system was largely unregulated. Tenancies were governed by the common law rules which included the rules for ‘notices to quit’ and forfeiture.
Landlord and tenant regulation really began as a result of problems which arose during the first world war. Because of shortages of housing in key locations, local landlords were able to increase rents significantly which caused big problems for politicians.
On Clydeside for example strike action was threatened. As the government had no alternative sources for social housing or any schemes for helping to meet people’s housing costs, the only alternative available to them was to bring in legislation to restrict landlords rights to set or alter rent levels.
To prevent landlords from getting around this by demanding a premium or ‘key money’, this also was outlawed, and tenants were given security of tenure.
After the ‘Great War’
This legislation was only ever intended, at the time, to be a temporary emergency wartime measure and not a long term intervention in the freedom of landlords and tenants to contract. It only applied to rented dwellings which fell below defined net rateable value limits and thus was only intended to protect the poor. (Note – prior to Council Tax, the system for local taxation of property was based on ‘rateable values’).
However after the end of the 1914-18 war, social and political pressures resulted in the original legislation being retained as Government could not afford, politically, to repeal it. During the next 40 years, there was considerable amendment but no real repeal.
The outbreak of the second world war led to a wider range of dwellings being included in the legislation and by 1953 it was estimated that over 90% of dwellings fell within the rateable value limits and most unfurnished tenancies were within the scope of the legislation.
Decontrol and its aftermath
In the 1950s some attempts were made to decontrol the private rented sector. The Housing Repairs and Rent Act 1954 put new and newly converted dwellings outside rent control. Then the Conservative government’s Rent Act 1957 decontrolled all dwellings with a rateable value of more than £30 (£40 in London) at once and provided for other dwellings to be decontrolled when they became vacant.
This led to difficult social and political problems with allegations of landlords ‘encouraging’ tenants to move out, especially in areas of high housing demand. The most notorious of these was, of course, Peter Rachman – which led to the phrase ‘Rachmanism’ meaning exploitation and intimidation of tenants by unscrupulous landlords.
As a result of this, the Milner-Holland Committee was set up to look at, in particular, the effects of the de-control legislation on the housing market in London.
New protective legislation in the 1970’s
In 1964 a new Labour government was elected led by Harold Wilson (pictured). This government was essentially responsible for the protective regime which lasted for the next 25 years.
The first act to be passed was the Protection from Eviction Act 1964. Followed by the Rent Act 1965. These introduced the following new concepts and measures:
- Harassment – the 1964 act was the first act to make the act of harassing a tenant into leaving a property a criminal offence
- Due process – this is the concept that landlords must obtain a court order for possession, if tenants stay beyond the contractual tenancy period, before they can recover physical possession. This rule applied to all tenants, not just those falling within the scope of the Rent Acts
- Notices to Quit – these now had to give at least four weeks, irrespective of the term of the tenancy
- Fair rents – instead of inflexible rent controls based on tightly defined statutory formulae, rent levels were to be fixed at a ‘fair’ level which reflected market rent but discounted any inflation for housing shortage. Any appeal was to the Rent Assessment Committees (now replaced by the First Tier Tribunal) and fair rents could be reviewed every two years.
These changes not only affected more properties (as the applicable rateable value was widened to £200 (£400 in London), but were also, for the first time, intended to be permanent.
The Rent Act 1974
This act introduced the following developments:
- Furnished accommodation was now brought within the Rent Act scheme
- Resident landlords – this was a new concept – landlords who lived in the same building (other than a purpose built block of flats) were not subject to the Rent Act regime, but a less stringent regime called ‘restricted contracts’.
- Owner occupiers were given a mandatory ground for repossession if they wanted their own property back to live in, for example after a spell working abroad, so long as they followed certain procedural steps
- Succession rights – rights were introduced for spouses and family members to succeed to a statutory tenancy on the death of the tenant.
Statutory consolidation in 1977
In 1977 the Protection for Eviction Act and the Rent Act 1977 were both passed which consolidated all the earlier legislation. So now we do not need to look behind these two acts.
The impact of the legislation
The legislation was complex and not well known to tenants. So although they had strong rights, tenants did not always take advantage of them as intended.
Also, the legislation was also not comprehensive and some tenancy types were out of scope. Landlords would often try to use this to avoid the acts and evict tenants. For example by renting properties as ‘licenses’ and to limited companies as opposed to individuals.
The ‘license’ lets stratagem was knocked on the head by the 1985 case of Street v. Mountford. Company lets are still with us.
However, one major result of the legislation as a whole was the substantial reduction in the size of the private rented sector. Households living in private rented accommodation went down from about 80% in 1918 to about 8-9% at the end of the 1980s. The protective legislation introduced in the 1960s and 1970s were not the sole cause of this but they were certainly a factor.
The Rent Acts were not popular with landlords.
One landlord described them to me as ‘expropriation without compensation’ and a lot of landlords felt the same. Few property owners were prepared to allow tenants into a property if this meant the effective loss of that property for two generations (as often happened).
There were many cases where a property owner allowed someone to live in a property for what was supposed to be a limited period of time (or in one case that I know of, just for a holiday) only to find that they were stuck with them as tenants for decades.
There was also the problem of low rents. The ‘fair rents’ were supposed to reflect the market rent. But as over time, there were no genuine market rents, the fair rent levels drifted down and down.
Landlords, therefore, had little incentive (and often could not afford) to keep properties in good condition and many property conditions deteriorated seriously as a result of this.
A new broom – changes introduced in the 1980s
In 1979 Mrs Thatcher’s conservative government swept into power and ushered in a period of profound change for housing. She was determined to increase the supply of private sector rented housing and to use legislation for this end.
Almost before the removal vans had left No 10, a draft bill introducing what was to become a new form of tenancy was winging its way through Parliament. The Housing Act 1980 introduced the concept of the shorthold tenancy – a form of tenancy where, provided a certain procedure was followed carefully, a Judge had no option but to make an order for possession.
This concept was redeveloped and made more mainstream in the Housing Act 1988 which introduced a new type of tenancy for all private lettings starting after 15 January 1989 – the assured tenancy and its relative, the assured shorthold tenancy. The main difference between the two being the right for landlords of assured shorthold tenancies to evict tenants without giving a reason provided they followed the procedure set out in section 21 of the act.
This new legislation though, did not immediately result in the buoyant private housing sector we have today. It took some time for landlords to fully appreciate the new rights that they had under section 21.
The property crash which started in 1988 also inhibited things for quite some time, and it was not until the introduction of the buy to let mortgage launched by ARLA in about 1995 that the PRS started to take off.
Initially, the assured tenancy was the ‘default’ tenancy – which in many ways was similar to the old ‘protected tenancies’. However, by 1996 and the passing of the Landlord and Tenant Act of that year, we were sufficiently familiar with the concept of assured shortholds for it to be made the default tenancy type.
From that time onwards the private rented sector continued to grow and develop. Section 21 has been enormously important and in many ways is the author of the modern PRS.
- Landlords feel secure when renting property to tenants as they know they can get it back again – unlike the situation under the Rent Act 1977
- Mortgage lenders are prepared to finance a property purchase where the purchaser will not be living there themselves, again because of the protection provided and the ultimate right to recover possession under section 21
More recent developments with section 21
These will be looked at again in later posts, but in order to complete the story, we should cover them briefly here.
The development of Section 21 Pre-Requites
Initially, obtaining possession under section 21 was fairly straightforward. The landlord had to serve a notice giving not less than two months notice and apply to the court for a possession order. The main challenge for landlords was getting the notice correctly drafted.
The government then started including pre-requisites, the first being
- That a deposit (if paid to the landlord) must be properly protected in a government authorised tenancy deposit scheme and
- The prescribed information served, both of these within 30 days of payment of the money, and
- That licensable Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) must have a valid license
Many landlords fell foul of these rules, in particular, those requiring protection of the deposit.
Then, new rules were introduced (in England) via the 2015 Deregulation Act, including
- The need to serve a valid gas safety certificate and EPC certificate, and
- The Governments ‘How to Rent’ booklet giving guidance to tenants, and
- New rules about timing and
- A new prescribed form
Again, many landlords fail to comply and are unable to obtain their possession order as a result.
However, despite this protection, section 21 has been so misused by some landlords, that is is now regarded by many as ‘evil’
Why section 21 is regarded as Evil
By now, the PRS has expanded enormously, partly due to the sell-off of social housing under the ‘right to buy’ and partly due to the massive increase in house prices – meaning that many cannot afford to buy their own home.
So the Private Rented Sector now includes more families and older people who in the past might have been home-owners.
These people feel particularly threatened by the fact that their security of tenure is no longer than the remainder of their fixed term or two months, whichever is the longer.
Sadly, due to the chronic non-enforcement of housing legislation by the authorities, many rogue and criminal landlords have entered the sector. These will terrorise tenants, and hold the threat of a section 21 eviction over their heads if they dare to complain about the poor condition of their properties.
Most of their tenants feel they have no choice but to accept this as often they would find it hard to find somewhere else to rent.
Even non-criminal landlords will use section 21 sometimes to evict tenants who have done no wrong. Which means that many tenants do not feel secure in their homes and feel unable to put down roots in the community. This can be particularly damaging for families with children.
Proposals to end section 21
And so the wheel has come full circle and it is proposed to remove the right for landlords to evict without a reason.
This proposal raises many issues, some of which have been flagged up but not considered fully, in this article. I hope though that it will provide a useful background to the discussions which will now be taking place.
I will be looking at various issues regarding the ending of section 21 in this series of posts.
Interesting history. I might be quite unusual in the sheer length of time I’ve been involved in housing and its problems, so I have seen more than most and I always remind people that prior to Thatcher’s deregulation of the PRS to increase its size, we didnt actually need it because there was loads of social housing.
I worked in night shelters at that time and we had a massive resettlement programme, getting street drinkers into council flats that nobody else wanted.
The social engineering of creating a bigger PRS cannot be separated from the attack on social housing which ISNT the right to buy on its own but the concomitant discount and limits on social landlords building replacements.
It didnt create a level playing field or choice for renters or landlords. It merely killed off the competition and thats what we’re llving with now.
And s21 wont just get ripped up, as I’m sure you’ll be writing about in this series Tessa. They will have to also work on the grounds for eviction under schedule 2, the Deregulation Act, the Housing Act 2004, all the legislation that is ancillary to s21, not to mention the CPRs and just deal with the closure and sell off of court buildings if they want to speed up s8 applications
You have simplffied things which I can understand. However I think it gives a false impression that the system was working well enough to not need modification, instead of needing almost constant tinkering.. There are also some inaccuracies., e.g, succession rights were introduced long before 1974
When controlled tenancies were first introduced in WW1 the government also froze mortgage rates to protect landlords. Rents were frozen at 1914 levels. Tenants who paid the rent and followed other conditiond of the tanancy could only be evicted if they caused a nuisance or the lanlord needed the property for his own use or that of an employee.
When it was extended in 1919 houses built after April that year were excluded.
In 1920 the rateable value limits were greatly increased (from £35pa to £105pa) and some conmtrol was appl,ied to furnished lettings for the first time. Mortgage rates were allowed to increase 1% and rents up to 40% (15% for war time inflation and 25% if the property was repaired to a satisfactory standard).Widows were given a right od succession. Houses built after April 1919 were excluded.
In 1923 a system of gradual decontrol was introduced. A later report found that this worked too slowly for larger properties and too quickly for smaller ones. So in 1933 it was made easier for larger ones to become decontrolled and smaller ones would no longer become decontrolled. Also that year widowers were given a right of succession.
In 1938 all houses over a certain rateable value were decontrolled (£35 in London).
With the ourbreak of war all houses under s a certain rateable value were brought back under control (£100 in London).This was intended as a temporary measure, but the state of emergency was not officially ended until 1968.
In 1949 rent tribunals were introduced which upon application by either the tenant or landlord could determine a reasonable rent/. They also had the power to suspend a notice to quit for up to 3 months at a time.
in 1954 landlords were encouraged to repair properties by being allowed an increase in rent for doing so.In 1957 the same was done with regard to converting properties to use smokeless fuel.
A mentioned the 1957 decontrolled higher value properties, and brought in a formula for determining rents based on rateable value.
Rachman exploited those properties that were still controlled. He would buy building with multiple low value controlled tenancies where the value was low due to the controls. Then he would get all the tenants out, using illegal means is necessary. Then he would change the layout so that the individual properties counted and new and were not controlled. (If you watch US cop shows that sort of thing seems to still happens there.)
In 1958 recovery of possession except by legal means was prohibted for somne properties released from control.
in 1961 landlords were made responsible for many repairs to dwellings.
In 1964 help was provided for housing associations and local authorities were given the duty to comprl the improvement of houses without basic amenities. Grants were made available for this. It was made illegal to evict without going to court with few exceptions.This was a temporary measure ahead of the major reform planned for the following year.
A committee on housing in London reported to the labour government that there was an acute shortage of rental housing and that sneither trict control or piecemeal decontrol would work. This lead to tthe rent act of 1965. This was probably the biggest reform of the last hundred years, It created a new type of tenancy (the protected tenancy) and applied it to most new residential tenancies.
Tinkering continued so in 1977 most of the legislation was consolidated into 2 acts, but they did not change much. It did cobvert any remaining controlled tenancies into protected ones.
In 1989 the penalties for unlawful evition and harassment were increased.
Thanks Peter!
Very interesting article and comments. A couple of questions though:
1 When did the idea that you could end a tenancy on a no fault basis enter the fray.
2 Am I right to assume that tenancies were always granted on a fixed term (which is sort of what a shorthold is?) and thus a landlord just gets the property back at end of the term (no court order necessary pre-‘Rent Acts’)?
3 Was it the Wilson administration which brought in the grounds and not ending a tenancy without court order?
If I am right about the fixed term then, the equivalent to ‘grounds’ that can be used in the fixed term (I.e. rent, breach, nuisance Asb) by a LL to evict a tenant would be what we call forfeiture? (which we see hanging around in tenancy agreements still due to the way many interpret the labyrinthine text of the Housing Act 1988)
?
One more ? for good measure
1. I think it was the Housing Act 1980 which first introduced the ‘protected shorthold tenancy’.
2. I’m not a legal historian and can’t really say about early leases. But the Law of Property Act 1925 s54(2) allows a tenancy to be created simply by someone living in a property and paying rent.
3. I think so. Although again I don’t know for sure when the right to evict tenants without a court order (eg by forfeiture) ended.
1) The idea that landlords could evict without giving a reason is very old. It was only in WW1 that landlords were prevented from evicting some tenants without a reason, i.e. tenants were given security of tenure. That applied to controlled tenancies only. With the 1965 act and the introduction of protected tenancies, it was applied to virtually all new residential tenancies and became the norm. It was in 1989 that the AST allowing landlords to get a possession order without giving a reason after the fixed period was introduced.
2) Land law used to be a mixture of feudal law and contract law. Feudal law originally required that land be held by someone capable of performing their feudal dues -originally fighting for the king. Leases were used tp add a bit of flexibility. But the conflict between the two legal systems led to a lot of weird things. One was the idea that leases could not be of indeterminate length, though I believe until the death of a specified living person was allowed. So you are not entirely wrong, but I think that had ended before the 20th century.
3) The need to go to court and have a ground for eviction existed for controlled tenancies pretty much since they were first created in WW1. Originally courts court agree on any grounds they thought satisfactory. Wilson’s government did extend them to most tenancies.
Just out of curiosity – a hundred years ago, some 80% of the population lived in rented accommodation.
Who actually owned the properties? Clearly not all ‘lords of the manor’.
My parents bought the house in which they lived – from their landlord* – that was in about 1938.
Three bedroom end terrace in a town. Some sellers would presumably have been speculative builders or developers – but who else? No btl mortgages in those days, so how would people come to own multiple properties?
* The story goes that the landlord did not want to sell to my mother (father away in the Navy). So she approached a solicitor to put forward her offer without revealing who she was. By the time the seller/landlord found out, it was too late. You could’t get away with that today.
Industrialists buily houses for workers to live in. Builders built estates speculatively. And the medieval ttradition of lords building/extending towns on land they owned to increase the rents (compared to farming).
My home town went from a village of a few hundred to a town of about 20,000 if around 30 years in the early part of the industrial revolution, starting in the 1780s. This was done by the local lord according to a plan which can still be seen in the centre. Around a third of the town is still owned by the trust set up for his heirs.
I’m really interested in this sort of history, it provides a useful perspective and its perhaps useful to look at what has changed in renting world since the introduction of s21 on the 15th January 1989 and today, which is mainly down to the demographic of private renters.
I dont know the demographic of renters pre the 88 Act but now we have older people and families renting for sure, that might previously have been either social tenants or home owners. Champions of short term tenancies always point to flexibility and choice but I dont think families or older people want either. They want a stable home, which short term tenancies and s21 dont guarantee.
I think no fault evictions are immoral but I also think eviction by fault should be easier than it is and I honestly think that government’s announcement to abolish s21 has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with queasiness over a general election when Labour promise the same abolition and a general cluelessness about real housing problems, because the Tories are unable to see any solution to a housing problem that sits outside the Overton Window of a free market economy.
So I see this week’s announcement as complete tosh. If Labour win then the responsibility to abolish s21 is their problem and it WILL be a big task. If the Tories follow through then it will take years
Some renters want stable homes, some don’t There was a proposal (in Scotland I think) for minimum tenancy lengths of 12 months, which would not have suited students who prefer to only pay for 10. .
Ben! It’s not “tosh” is it. It’s profound to have the Tories admitting that section 21 is a failed policy. Profound !
What do you propose in lieu of section 21?
This post is actually a re-write of an article I wrote for one of our training courses in about 2012.
I got most of the background information of this history from one of the Law Commission’s Renting Homes reports which I think were published in about 2006.
I read them at the time and thought ‘That’s interesting” so when I wanted to do a history article several years later I went back to them. I have not seen any other reports of this type of social history although maybe I have not looked terribly hard. After all, I had enough for what I needed …
But I agree, Ben, its really interesting and I think it’s important to look at what went before when planning what to do in the future. I hope some of our legislators read up on this.
Thank you for sharing your source; I had been curious. I’ve only been at it for 6 months or so, but I’ve read a great deal, and this is the single finest article I’ve ever read on the subject of landlord and tenant. It’s deeply impressive.
“So the Private Rented Sector now includes more families and older people who in the past might have been home-owners.These people feel particularly threatened”
These people are in the minority.
They can negotiate *and pay for* extra security of tenure if they wish.
Scrapping section 21 means that now all tenants will pay for it whether they want it or not.
A perverted form of communism brought in by a Tory government- Who’da thunk it?
“A perverted form of communism brought in by a Tory government- Who’da thunk it?” That was exactly my impression.
. .I’ve just bought a flat, with an ‘advance on my inheritance’ from my father.
Prior to that I was living in rented accommodation since 2000.
Twice I’ve been served with section 21 Notices for no reason associated with my tenancy. Once because I complained when the landlord painted over black mould in the bathroom and it reappeared within weeks; once because the landlord died and his heirs wanted to sell the flats with vacant possession.
On several other occasions I’ve had to fight off proposed rent increases at 3, 4, even 5 times inflation and been threatened with a section 21 Notice.
On another occasion there were complaints – from one adjoining tenant who told me herself that she was chronically sensitive to noise – that I was listening to the radio at levels which I tested at just over 60dB, which is rated as ‘normal conversation’. The landlord’s agent wasn’t interested in my argument, nor in my suggestion that the local authority should be asked to consider whether my listening levels were unacceptable. ‘Stop the complaints or it’s a section 21 Notice’.
In my view, 30 years of section 21 have insulated landlords and agents against the realisation that this is a contract in which they landlord agrees, in consideration of rent, to provide the tenant with A HOME.
Rules such as: you can’t hang anything on the walls; you can’t have coat hooks in the hallway.
Factors such as: I’m not going to tell you that there’s no TV aerial so you’ll have to buy a 12 month Virgin contract to watch TV even though I’ve refused to give you anything more than the minimum 6 month contract.
Decisions such as: I’m not going to do anything about that hole in the bathroom wall under the basin because it will reduce my annual income; I’m not going to replace the godawful tatty kitchen unit doors because it will reduce my annual income; I’m not going to replace this cheap, nasty and tatty carpet with large unravelling patches because it will reduce my annual income.
Agents who can’t be bothered to make someone available when you move in to show you where the stopcock is, where the electricity and gas meters are, how to operate the central heating and the oven, and when you point out you don’t have a key to open the meter box tell you that you can buy one in most corner shops.
In 2012 I was asked to pay over £150 for an agent to carry out a credit check on me, at almost exactly the same time as a credit reference agency offered to carry out credit checks on behalf of my clients for £10 per check.
All these things are clear evidence that as far as most, or at least many, landlords and agents are concerned, nothing is of any interest other than the profit to be made.
As a tenant, section 21 possessions have cost me nearly £2,000 in additional agency fees in finding a home to replace the one in which I was living.
It’s important to know that this is all in the upper levels of the rental sector; unfurnished two bed flats in good modern properties in salubrious areas of the town.
Landlord associations bleat about not being able to get rid of tenants but if the tenant misbehaves they have everything they need under section 8 HA 1988 as amended. Plus, additional mandatory possession orders for things like redeveloping the property or moving into it residentially. So why is section 21 required at all? So landlords can exercise unreasonable levels of control over their tenants. I cannot find any other reason.
I’m posting from “the other side”, but I have to say, I feel this is an accurate and damning representation of the PRS.
Do our tenancy agreements include clauses forbidding tenants from putting things up on the wall without consent? I’m going to sheepishly say yes, they do. We do explain to tenants that ask that they can hang whatever they want as long as the give the property back in the condition it originally was in. But yes, the existence of limitations such as those obviously sends the message that a tenant’s home is not actually their home. Is it reasonable to expect someone to ask for permission to hang a picture on a wall? No. It isn’t. We need to do better.
Have we told tenants that the lack of an aerial is not our responsibility? I’ll hold my hands up – yes, we have.
Do some of the properties that we manage have dated kitchen units? Could the carpets do with replacing in a few? Yes again.
We’re guilty. On all three counts.
The last few years have been turbulent when it comes to the PRS. The constant change that we see comes from very real and valid grievances that people have against the industry.
Really, the industry has not kept pace with an ever-shifting reality. Renting today is seen as a temporary arrangement, something people do while they’re saving up for a house. It’s for the young, the single. Current practice in the sector is entirely geared around that mindset. But the fact is that many of my generation and younger will never be able to afford to become homeowners. One-size tenancy does not fit all, and certainly the current tenancies with their in-built insecurity are not suitable for people who know they will rent for the rest of their lives.
However, sword does cut both ways: As we see longer security for tenants, if tenancies themselves are thought of as long-term affairs (perhaps even closer to leaseholds), the expectation for what a property should provide by default will in itself naturally shrink. Currently some landlords are reluctant to change the carpets during a tenancy because they see the tenancy as a temporary thing (“We’ll change it after the current ones leave”). However, landlords that expect the current tenancy to run for a decade or more? They’ll never change the carpets, ever. The house you let should be seen as your home, absolutely. However, the flipside of that is that you could be expected to furnish and redecorate and look after your home almost as if you were the homeowner. At least, that’s what I think would happen if a tenant is seen as the sole beneficiary of any home improvements. Is it still worth it? Is that trade-off fair? I dunno. Is this vision even realistic? I dunno. We live in interesting times.
@ Ikram,
Would you take on a tenant that had been threatened and served with section 21’s several times?
I wouldn’t.
Once perhaps, if they were open about it with a credible story.
That tells us a lot about landlord’s attitudes and how section 21 blights the lives of tenants. I was quite clear in my post that the first s.21 was because I complained that the property was in an uninhabitable condition due to mould, and the second time was because the heirs wanted to sell with vacant possession.
Neither of those reasons *should* have any bearing on whether I am a desirable tenant.
After the mould incident I lucked into a tenancy of another flat in the same block which I occupied for 6 years without ever being late with rent and no complaints from any other tenants, and I returned to the flat the weekend after I moved to another city to clean it from top to bottom. In that time there were several different tenants of the flat with the mould problem. I hope it was a very low-profit interval for the landlord.
It’s interesting to hear that landlords think that the ‘no fault possession’ feature of the AST actually implies fault when you’re considering a new tenant. Nice.
Thanks for your intelligent comments Ikram. They are interesting to read and I welcome your honesty.
Being a landlord requires work – as you describe. If someone does not want to do that work and wants to sell up instead that needs to be allowed. The situation you mention where someone inherits a property is an example. When I started as a landlord I had the knowledge that if I did not like it could change my mind and get most of my money back after 6 months. I would not have taken the risk without that safety net. Given how the PRS was contin ually shrinking prior to S21 being introduced I do not think I am the only one.
It is unfortunate that a tenant usually brings the value of a property down, Geberally there is a bigger market for unteanted properties, but preventing landlords from legally getting vacant possession to sell has been proven tp be a bad idea.That would reduce the value still further for good landlords, but not as much for rogue ones. Rachman bought properties cheaply where there were tenants who could not be legally evicted, then used illegal means to evict them and increase the value. Making profits higher for rogue landlords than good ones is a good way to get rid of the good ones.
Section 8 does not give landlords everything they need. It is so poor that even when they could use section 8 many lanlord prefer to used section 21. I did when I had a tenant who stopped paying.. Not that S21 worked that well – It took 6 months before he left. And in the £7k needed to refurb and that was over £10k he cost me.
The proposal mentions improving section 8 so I am somewhat optimistic about it. The Scottish system that replaced their S21 equivalent looks like it should work to me, though it is too early to be certain.
Section 8, when it applies, and particularly if one of the mandatory grounds is used, is far preferable to s.21. You can get in front of the court in 2 weeks for non-payment, but you have to wait two months just to find out whether the tenant is going to leave voluntarily under s.21
I watch these ‘tenant from hell’ programmes on TV and, acknowledging that the producers probably select the juiciest examples, people are complaining that their properties have been trashed when there are rent arrears of over 12 months.
Clearly, it’s appalling that some people treat their homes this way, but after the second missed payment (monthly), off you go to the Court and you’ll get your possession order (and if you wish, for payment of arrears) in a fortnight. A month later and you can enforce with bailiffs. 10 weeks instead of over a year. Visit the property after the first missed payment and you’ll find you can add other grounds as well as arrears to your section 8 Claim.
A temperate, informative posting. Thank you.
“I always remind people that prior to Thatcher’s deregulation of the PRS to increase its size, we didnt actually need it because there was loads of social housing.”
I hope people remind you there was loads of social housing because no one wanted to live in it, and for good reason.
This is very true, I worked for the GLC and we had properties empty, sometimes for years, as they were on estates that were classified as “Hard to Let”. These were scattered all over London, the costs of these places were huge, continual boarding up after removing squatters, repairs after thefts of boilers, copper pipe, bathroom suites etc, the list went on and on. As hbWelcome say, nobody wanted to live on these estates.
On the other hand, where I was living until the 80s council houses were well built, well maintained, roomy, had front and back gardens, and highly desirable.
London =/= the whole country.
This is an outright lie.
Hi Tessa/Any other expert,
In light of the recent court cases regarding 21, do you know these apply to only tenants that started post hearing or BEFORE? I don’t think this has been raised anywhere