Government will ‘shelve’ plans to abolish Section 21 evictions

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 12/10/2022 - 11:16
Hi Seething - again thank you for clarifying why you believe S21 was never intended to tackle rent arrears and I understand your reasoning. However it does appear that this is your belief rather than a legal precedent or based on any actual declaration of "intent for use" for want of a better phrase declared when this legislation was introduced

As I say I think the majority of LLs here would testify to the fact S21 is on the whole used for fault regardless if that fault is declared and should it be removed all evidence points to landlords leaving in droves (as had already happened), resulting in a continued decline in stock, remaining LLs being very fussy about who they rent to and a lack of supply = higher rents. This may benefit a few LLandlords who remain in the sector and choose to charge those higher rents but will sadly be very damaging to the tenants looking to secure a nice home at a reasonable price! I have personally received some heartbreaking applications from prospective tenants in such a position. As I said to the select committee what use is security of tenure if you cannot get a tenancy in the first place. I think I will leave it there 🙂

What I find so frustrating is that good tenants are always paying for bad tenants.

If you hve one tenant who costs you fortune in damages and who you can't get out for months, usualy the only way to recoup costs is to increase your other tenants rents.

I've never understood why tenants dont campaign to make eviction of bad tenants easier for landlords.

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 12/10/2022 - 11:16
"If S21 was intended to give landlords unrestricted ability to regain possession, what was the point of having the very detailed grounds for possession contained in S8 when landlords could simply circumvent them by using S21 instead?"

Because S21 can't be used during the fixed term and the intention was to encourage longer term tenancies (i.e 3 years).

Just explaining "the point", not what actually happened.

Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 11/10/2022 - 22:08You are right, I have never had that experience. In 17 years as a landlord I have only had to evict one tenant, who had persistent problems with housing benefit being suspended for reasons that we never discovered. It is most unlikely that we could have established grounds under S8 and we chose to use S21 for simplicity and certainty. This worked well for us but not for the tenant and could be seen objectively as an unfair eviction as she had never been 2 months in arrears and would have attracted the sympathy of a judge considering the discretionary alternative ground.
The circumstances you outlined where there is an unjustified counterclaim by the tenant are distressing and unfair but unlikely to sway legislators, who will have regard to the maxim "hard cases make bad law".

Reply to the comment left by Alexandra at 12/10/2022 - 11:35
I agree. Let's hope that if and when S21 is repealed there are sufficient safeguards for landlords to prevent the predicted mass exodus from the sector.

Reply to the comment left by JB at 12/10/2022 - 11:44
@JB - because tenants are being 'fed' a false narrative by so-called tenant support groups ( who only support the small % of Rogue Tenants, and actually harm the majority of Genuine tenants )
I am equally baffled by why the media swallow this tripe that's fed to them.

PMQ’s - PM says 2019 manifesto to scrap S21 will be honoured

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 12/10/2022 - 11:52
Thanks for that explanation. I'm not sure that it's correct bearing in mind that it was all part of the move from open-ended tenancies to shorthold with a minimum fixed-term of 6 months which as far as I am aware quickly became the norm. Was it anticipated that S21 would become the default method once the fixed-term had expired?

Liz Truss has said on PMQs that S21 evictions will be banned.

Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 12/10/2022 - 12:29
Perfect words Chris, they actually harm themselves calling for more punitive retrospective regs & legislation.
Ben Beadle was on the news this morning & the renters chap, I wanted to ask him 'Why do we punish ALL Landlords which is the majority are good Landlords & good tenants who have zero problems cause then ALL rents go up & your supply goes down making it even worse for u.