Polly Neate – “It’s appalling that every seven minutes another private renter is slapped with a no-fault eviction notice”

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 27/04/2022 - 16:57
Apparently they *will* still be housed if they have children as the eviction is not the child's fault and by proxy the parent gets housed along with them. I too was hoping for the passage of time to start to rack up a whole bunch of 'proof' in the form of fairly Judged and evicted (now homeless) tenants with no-one but themselves to blame. No doubt Shelter would just move on to rent controls as their topic du jour at that point.

Reply to the comment left by Carol at 27/04/2022 - 09:27
Why do so many of you insist that you "need" vacant possession in order to sell? Surely you should be campaigning for a better CGT and Stamp Duty regime provided you sell with the tenant left in situ instead of needlessly uprooting a family for a bit of extra profit.

Reply to the comment left by Happy Landlord at 27/04/2022 - 10:18
"For the first time in 25 years I am now looking to evict my tenants and sell all my houses something I have always said that I would never do - that is another 30 families on the street but I cannot take the risk of not being able to remove a bad tenant without a lot of cost and hassle..." - You don't think selling 30 properties and paying CGT on every one of them is rather a lot of hassle to go to in order to avoid a hypothetical bad tenant or two that you could get rid of via a S8 eventually anyway?

Reply to the comment left by ImpartialObserver at 27/04/2022 - 17:46
I'll give you a clue;

...Section 21 evictions aren't really 'no fault' evictions!

Reply to the comment left by ImpartialObserver at 27/04/2022 - 17:46
Take the emotion away and wonder why private property, in the literal sense (like, say, your car or the shirt on your back) and it’s disposal should be any business of the State’s. Where does this leave the true ownership of anything?

In any case, Govt. would rather homes be bought by owner-occupiers (not just passed between landlords).

Why don’t *you* campaign for the Govt. to build truly affordable houses instead of chasing what can only ever be a temporary sticking plaster at best.

Reply to the comment left by ImpartialObserver at 27/04/2022 - 18:07
"you could get rid of via a S8 eventually anyway?"

There speaks someone who has never attempted to evict using the ASB grounds!

Shelter claim more than 200,000 private renters in England have been served eviction notices without doing anything wrong in the last three years.
Landlord Association, iHowz, can only assume they are once again referring to the use of no reason given possession notices, sought under section 21(1) or (4) of the Housing Act 1988.
No landlord will seek to evict their tenants without good reason. Retaliatory evictions were banned under the Deregulation Act 2015
Why would a business terminate their agreement with a reliable customer who was meeting the terms of their agreement, paid on time and had no arrears, other than a change to their business (to refurbish or sell the property)?
Landlords are often forced to use S21 as it provides greater certainty of eviction, without adversarial court proceedings.
iHowz are lobbying MPs to show them that revoking S21 is likely to lead to unintended consequences, and are proposing changes to S21 to give greater security to tenants who have been tenants for a number of years.
Details of our campaign can be found here https://ihowz.uk/category/campaigns/
We would like to take this opportunity to remind MPs and tenant representatives that, as stated on the .Gov Tenancies and Leases page, Section 21 gives a landlord an automatic right of possession without having to give any grounds (reasons) once the fixed term has expired.
iHowz will be writing to Michael Gove and Stuart Andrew to get this page corrected.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/assured-tenancy-forms#form-6a.

Take a look at our S21 campaign and keep an eye out for our Rental White Paper, which we are publishing next week
https://ihowz.uk/category/campaigns/

Before you call your agent for a sales valuation, please take a few minutes to write to your MP and send a copy of our S21 proposal

I feel sure I’ve read somewhere that if section 21 is abolished then section 8 will be strengthened to include evictions if L.L. wants to sell - wants to occupy property - tenants anti social behaviour- more than 2 months arrears. This would cover most reason’s to evict- so maybe it’s not too bad after all! As I’ve said before - write directly to current housing minister, now Michael Gove - he’ll soon get fed up!

"Section 8 will be strengthened to include evictions if L.L. wants to sell - wants to occupy property - tenants anti social behaviour- more than 2 months arrears. This would cover most reason’s to evict"

Makes you wonder why they haven't brought in this wonderful new legislation already!

Why would any landlord wait the best part of a year using S21 if they could evict an ASB tenant in a month using S8?

(The answer of course is that there is no wonderful new S8 legislation. The government are just kicking the can down the road on scrapping S21 because a well trained Cocker Spaniel could spot the obvious consequences.)

Reply to the comment left by ImpartialObserver at 27/04/2022 - 17:46
Buying a property with tenants in situ has been made riskier over the years. As a property solicitor, doing due diligence on a purchase, it is rare to find every piece of paperwork in order and to be sure the seller has complied (or can prove they have complied) with all the regulations. The consequences of non-compliance are serious and the buyer may inherit problems which can be costly and time-consuming to resolve. Why take the risk?

That's not to say it's the only reason buyers want vacant possession but it is a factor.

Reducing stamp duty land tax for sales subject to tenancies would be great but it's a non-starter. First the Treasury need the money and second it would be simple to put in place sham tenancies to obtain the reduction.