It’s understood there will be a Christmas truce with tenants not enduring bailiff-enforced evictions between December 13 and January 10.

HM Courts and Tribunal has confirmed that this will follow the pattern of previous years.

In line with formal protocol the Lord Chancellor will inform the High Court Enforcement Officers’ Association – this association, in turn, will instruct its bailiff members not to enforce evictions during the truce period.

An informal truce of this kind, typically lasting two weeks, has occurred in recent years but won extensive publicity last year, at the height of the pandemic, when the truce was effectively an extension of the long-running eviction ban.

The current decision applies only to England but the devolved administrations are expected to endorse similar truces, to be announced within the next week.