Shelter claims government figures show 5,940 households were “threatened with homelessness” in England as a result of Section 21 evictions between April and June this year.
This figure has risen by 76 per cent in a year following the end of the eviction ban in May 2021.
To be classified as ‘threatened with homelessness’ by their council, Shelter says a household must be at risk of losing their home in the next eight weeks. This also means the council have a legal duty to help the household to either stay in their current home or to find somewhere new to live.
Shelter is urging the government to bring forward its long-promised Renters’ Reform Bill which will ban S21 evictions, and to unfreeze housing benefit to help struggling renters this winter to access safe accommodation.
The charity says the government data also revealed that 25 per cent were found to be homeless or at risk of becoming homeless because of the loss of a private tenancy.
In addition the number of private renting households in rent arrears who have become homeless or threatened with homelessness is up 38 per cent in the last year.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, says: “This winter is going to be brutal as the cost of living crisis goes from bad to worse, and the threat of rising rents and evictions loom large.
“Not a day goes by without our emergency helpline taking yet more calls from families who are being turfed out of their homes because of no-fault evictions. Many of these families won’t be able to find another rental – and instead may spend a bleak winter trapped in emergency accommodation with nowhere to cook or eat a meal, let alone put up a Christmas tree.
“The government promised to ban no fault evictions, it must get on with the job and make the Renters’ Reform Bill law. And to protect people from the threat of homelessness this winter, it must unfreeze housing benefit so families can pay their rent.”
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Keep going Shelter. Your campaign against landlords is encouraging them to sell up. You are one of the causes of the shortage of rental property.
Love the emotive language….”turfed” out, no-where to put up a Christmas 🎅🏻 🌲 tree…. Well I wonder why 🤔🤔, let me think.. the answer will come to me .
Typical shelter using families, homes, children and Christmas to pull on heart strings. Nothing about tenants not paying rent, doing it late and getting a s21 due to their own behaviour!
The tenants are pawns in this political scam. No consultation between landlord and charity groups I expect. Just the glory of.....now chickens coming home to roust. They've gone about this all wrong. They could of offered incentives to provide better homes. But that too much like common sense.
Unfreezing the LHA would help massively.
Landlords can't freeze rent indefinitely but increasing rent just risks clamant tenants getting into arrears.
It is far more humane and helpful to the tenant to issue a Section 21 before rent arrears occur then to wait until arrears are sufficient for a Section 8.
Someone threatened with eviction with a Section 21 gets all possible forms of help from the Local Authority. In some cases that may take the form of Discretionary Housing payments to cover whatever rent increase is required to retain the viability of the tenancy.
Section 8 is deemed to be a fault of the tenant and that they have made themselves intentionally homeless so far less help is available to them.
Can Shelter stop with the nonsense that people have to be out within 8 weeks of a Section 21 being issued. They know full well that is Fantasyland. 8 weeks is the absolute minimum before a landlord can apply to the Court for an eviction hearing. That hearing will be at some distant point in the future followed by a Bailiff at some point after that. It certainly isn't quick.
Here we go again with the ‘finger pointing’ and placing the blame on us Landlords. We dread serving Section 21s on good tenants, knowing we are disrupting their lives in almost every way - it is always the last option. However, we have to be able to pay and maintain the roofs over tenants’ heads and if we find ourselves unable to do so, the Section 21/8 is the unhappy consequence.
If we had the reassurance of 21 being retained, and the retraction of S24, we would be able to continue to go about our business of providing safe, comfortable homes to hardworking people.
Shelter very good Stating the Obvious because you have been very successful at causing this to happen.
Driving landlords out of the Market in their thousands creating homelessness well done.
I am tethering on the edge also and scalded that I haven’t done it already because of your interference pushing for removal of Section 21 the very foundation of all Private letting. Before which there was virtually no private landlords do you not get that.
Roll on your mate Mr Michael Gove so called Housing Secretary giving you a big helping hand, the perpetrator and Author of THE WHITE PAPER that includes removal of Section 21.
Mr Boris Johnson for all his faults was right to sack him.
Mr Rishi Sunak should never have reinstated him and I am no fan of him either.
I believe he was elected for the same reason as the Mayor of London / Mr khan, the Asian Community with the greatest respect wanted to prove to themselves that one with their own root could reach the top.
This is kin to the historical ancestors of Irish emigrants in America where 23 President’s out of 46 claims to have Irish connection.
Mr Gove is not a fit or proper man for the job and the Prime Minister should remove him before he does more damage than Ms Elizabeth Truss.
I was so disappointed in Rishi for bringing this moron back.
Its time that a long overdue campaign from orgs such as the NRLA and leading industry figures to expose Shelter for exactly what they are...take a look at their year book / accounts to see the top brass creaming off 6 figure saleries whilst the staff strike for better pay and who do they provide shleter to? No one! Not one single bed space! Just criticise those that do.
Absolutely right Carl. The charity (business) that houses no one. It’s a scam to line the pockets of a few . A noble cause corporatised just like everything else to make money and fake glory in the form of titles to the rotten .
Not even sure it's a noble cause?
They seem to exist to allow rogue tenants to delay lawful eviction and so delay decent tenants gaining access to homes which they deserve more than the Shelter "victims".
Maybe landlords are getting rid of tenants in order to sell up, others are getting rid of the non payers and constantly late payers . what's wrong with that ?
Such a shame that "shelter" spout this nonsense instead of doing something useful. No landlord gives notice to good tenants. There is simply a shortage of rental properties, caused mainly by various Govt policies and taxation regimes, and demonising landlords only makes the problem worse. Why can't they see this?
Exactly as Paul says…. We have to be the Devil in all this, how can you look like the good guy without a bad guy ? And we all know it pays well 💰💰
Sad landlord, I'm afraid they do see this. However don't forget, Shelter thrives on misery so it's really not in their interests to solve housing problems. The more misery there is, they can thrust their begging bowls in the direction of Government and corporates looking for a home for their "social guilt" money.
It is good for Shelter to promote the evil landlord scenario as it increases donations to them as a "charity"
Around 6000 Section 21 notices and 11 million tenants.
I bet more tenants will have died than issued with Section 21 notices in that same period.
Are landlords going to get blamed for that too? Will Shelter be demanding immortality for tenants next?
Surprise Surprise the Government and Shelter etc now beginning to reap that what they have sown.
In this article: -
"The charity says the government data also revealed that 25 per cent were found to be homeless or at risk of becoming homeless because of the loss of a private tenancy."
In my book that says that 75 per cent were not in private tenancies, who is evicting them, could it be social housing providers by any chance?
The problem is they don't give enough detail. 25% of what? All rental accommodation or just the private sector? Same with the 5940 figure mentioned in the beginning.
I think they are taking the figures for all rental accommodation and implying that it just applies to the PRS, making the PRS look worse.
Suppose you take a look at Shelter’s web site one of the first things you’ll notice is a place to donate / just give me money, tax free for them. So we are not talking about a miserable £10k sealing or exemption but a pot of over £60m tax free with Charity status.
I would love to see where their charity money goes to. Why they not buy property to rent for them. Then see how much they raise for their own cause.
I can’t understand why major Charities attacks landlords who no doubt gets millions from them because of favourable tax rules from Inheritance tax, very strange indeed .
Michea,l that's what banks do they basically play both ends against the middle. That is in essence what caused the 2008 crash. When their bets go wrong they expect the taxpayer to bail them out, or in the Bank of England or the Federal reserve.
To put this into perspective, 24,000 section 21 notices on a total 0f 4 million private rented properties per year. That is less than 1 percent. All shelter want to do is focus on landlords. It easier to vilify them, instead of lobbyimg the government to build more houses. Landlords are easy targets.
I've often seen figures of 11 million tenants and 2 million Landlords quoted but not sure if the 4 million figure you quote is the number of tenancies and the 11 million includes joint tenants, nor what Shelter's tiny figure refers to - people or properties where Section 21 notices have been issued?
It is unfortunate that, because Shelter are funded by our - taxpayers - money there is an inherent need to try to justify their very existence. Therefore instead of working with Landlords and Landlord Associations to ensure improvements are made for the mutual benefit of both Tenants and Landlords, they invariably tend towards "Landlord bashing" which effectively labels all Landlords as being "rogue Landlords", which clearly is not the case for the majority.
Similarly, Shelter need to recognise that there is a percentage of Tenants who can readily be described as rogue Tenants, whether this be due to anti-social behaviour, non payment of rent etc and who are very adept at presenting themselves as victims when they are in reality people who ignore their responsibilities to others and their legal obligations.
I should stress that this last statement is based on a historic representation of such tenants in regard to non-payment of rent, which clearly will not be pertinent to the legitimate problems some or many "decent" Tenants are now facing given the current financial situation.
So Shelter, seriously consider amending your modus operandi such that you work with and not against Landlords, then and only then might there be progress made in decreasing the numbers of S21 notices and the like.
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