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Stop Scaremongering! Landlords slams exaggerated Shelter claims

Shelter’s latest accusations about private landlords and evictions have been slammed as “scaremongering.”

The charity claims that a private renter in England is handed a Section 21 eviction every seven minutes. It says almost 230,000 private tenants have been served with a S21 since the government first committed to scrap this form of eviction in April 2019. 

And it adds that this is despite an eviction ban being in place for 14 months of this three-year period due to the pandemic.   

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However Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, is sharply critical of the claims.

“Shelter needs to stop its campaign of scaremongering. The vast majority of landlords do not spend their time plotting ways to get rid of their tenants for no reason” he says.

“Official data shows that fewer than 10 per cent of tenants who move do so because they are asked to by their landlord or letting agent. Likewise, the number of cases coming to court as a result of Section 21 notices has been falling since 2015.

“The government has committed to abolishing Section 21 possessions, but this has got to be replaced by a system that is both fair and workable for both tenants and landlords. 

“Simply getting rid of Section 21 on its own would, for example, make it all but impossible to take action against anti-social tenants who blight the lives of neighbours and fellow tenants.”

He adds that the NRLA has published its detailed plans for a new system that strikes what he calls “the right balance” and he wants to work with Shelter constructively.

 

Yesterday Polly Neate, Shelter chief executive, appeared to want a more aggressive approach against landlords, saying: “Millions of private renters are living in limbo – never truly able to settle - in case their landlord kicks them out on a whim. 

“It’s a well-founded fear as our frontline services support renters all the time who are scrambling to find a home after being told to up sticks with just two months’ notice.  

“With inflation and bills skyrocketing, renters desperately need a secure home as many will struggle to stump up the costs of having to move unexpectedly. 

“To give private renters stability during a time of deep uncertainty, the government must introduce a Renters’ Reform Bill that bans no-fault evictions this year. Anything less would be a kick in the teeth for England’s 11 million private renters.” 

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    Numerous industry people inc the NRLA have tried to work with shelter in the past and they are not interested as they do not want a solution, in order that they can continue doing what they do, which is providing no shelter whatsoever and just criicising those that do.
    Look at their yearbook / accounts and in particular the directors saleries, then you will understand why they actually do not want anything to change!!!!

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    Polly Bleate was on about £122k in 2017.

     
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    Oh, dear so now the head of NRLA wants to work with Shelter who supplied no Rental property & hates Private Landlords’s how about working with us instead of the opposition. They say they want a System that’s fair to both Tenants & Landlords’s but we had that before the 2015 Deregulation Act. Any System that prevents the Owner from getting his Property back is not fair or acceptable. The Lenders who are least affected don’t have any such recovery problems, the owners always stand to loose his big chunk of up front money, so the Lenders are at least risk and fully protected and we don’t have any even though we are the main player’s, just revert the Law to stop the unfairness.

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    Carl is correct. They do not want change.
    Polly Neate, Shelter, CEO, £125k p.a. plus defined contribution pension scheme.

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    One s21 eviction every seven minutes... where is the evidence of this?

    How many are being evicted for breach of tenancy, in particular, rent arrears?

    There is always a reason, no landlord wants to sabotage their own investment. Getting rid of s21 isn’t really a problem so long as there is a robust mechanism for genuine evictions, which in reality, most are.

    Beware though, in Scotland all mandatory grounds are now discretionary and section 33 is gone for good.

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    I wish they would give up this nonsensical idea that landlords just randomly give notice to tenants for no reason. Why would we? Every change of tenants costs us time and money. We only give notice to tenants where there is a good reason such as rent arrears, damage to property, or anti-social behaviour affecting other tenants or neighbours. Section 21 is often used as a back up to Section 8 just in case for some technical reason the section 8 fails.

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    No mention of all the students who get served a s21 to make sure that they vacate at the end of the academic year as initially agreed.

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    If my tenant had received realistic help from UC during the pandemic, been honest about losing a job I would not be using Section 21 to regain MY property

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    There will never be a worthwhile solution to replacing S21 for landlords. The bar is so high to prove any wrong doing of the tenant. It's easy to prove late payment which nobody else cares about and non-payment. That's it. Otherwise the tenant will rule.

    I can't see all the good intentioned people saying lets have a workable system. I say keep what we;ve got. S21 was already watered down with the Dereg Act 2015 which is stopping me doing a S21 at present with a VERY DIFFICULT tenant who's costing lots of money each month on continous repair issues. No doubt it an effort to remain there.

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    Put his rent up, he'll go then

     
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    Andrew, I would like to but they struggle with money. They can't afford more. They have tried to move but can't find anywhere. They won't go unless they are forced out. I don't want to do S8 as this tenant keeps reporting repairs and I don't want to wait FOREVER for court. She will look to offset rent with endless repairs. The onerous is ALL ON THE LANDLORD. Tenants can do no wrong. I can't see how we can allow S21 to go at all. Whatever comes in to replace will just be worse than the current situation.

     
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    Going back a lot of yrs now I did carry out an eviction myself, cost me £1000, but cheaper and quicker than doing it the legal way

     
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    Wales insists on 6 months notice. CAB and LA insist he is evicted under Section 21. The courts are slow. 6 months norice has become 9mths and counting and my financial loss is already great and increasing. My loss will continue to increase whilst recarpeting/redecorating and finding new tenant.
    Shelter and the like have no real idea of what it is to be a decent landlord in the private sector with absolutely no support.

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    One of my Tenants has just left the Property voluntarily. Which was a big relief as the House was filthy, how anyone can live in such filth amazes me. She was supposed to clean the House, Oven and tidy the Garden. But when I went to do the Inventory check out she had done nothing. I told her to get professional cleaners in to do the work and she said she would. However when I went back 5 Days later nothing had been done.
    Now she thinks I should not claim on the Deposit, she also failed to pay her final rent.
    This is the sort of Trashey People Landlords have to put up with and still we are painted as the Bad Guys.

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    We have all had tenants like that, be thankful she's gone, claim the full deposit money and a money claim online, then at least she will have a CCJ to her name to warn other landlords

     
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    I think we all know that what will come after S21 has gone will not be as good, we are always on the loosing side.

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    I agree with Carl and sad landlord but as landlords we need to wake up and smell the roses. It is no longer acceptable to evict tenants from their homes without reason. Section 21 is going to be abolished so let us embrace it and turn it to our advantage. The NRLA missed a PR opportunity by not supporting the abolition of section 21 which is unusual for them in as much as they seem to accept everything else the government throws at us.

    Let’s look at it another way. How many landlords would wish to rent a property and be kicked out for no reason? If we are not prepared to put up with such behaviour why should we expect our tenants to? If they were commercial tenants then you cannot remove a commercial tenant without using one of the reasons give in the Landlord and Tenant Act.

    As sad landlord says no landlord evicts for no reason so give the reason. As a large landlord I have evicted thousands of tenants and over 350 I have had to take them to court all for nonpayment of rent using section 8. Using section 8 I have had a 100% success rate in applying for possession for rent arrears. I have succeeded in evicting my tenants every time. I accept just because I have done it every other landlord may not be able to do so and I am well aware the law can be got around by streetwise tenants using dodgy lawyers.

    In the main I believe landlords have been spun the myth that eviction on rent arrears will result in a counterclaim for disrepair or tenants paying at the last moment. No tenant has ever paid me at the last moment and if they did I would gladly accept the rent along with costs and let them stay. Yes I may have to threaten eviction again to get them to pay but it’s better than no pay I accept Nick has an issue and Andrew has given him a solution, however, I think Nick is being in two minds about his tenant and does not really want to evict them. My suggestion Nick is put the evidence together log every complaint and see what the judge says. It depends on what do I do you get most if you could show you promptly dealt with every repair most of the repairs were caused by tenant misuse you will succeed.

    If we turned the abolition of section 21 into a positive then possibly three things could happen: firstly I would expect the same number of tenants to be evicted but this time it will be for a reason which will I believe, be mainly rent arrears. Secondly, The likes of shelter would not be able to beat us up with us evicting tenants for no reason. Finally, The government would have less reasons to blame landlords for evictions and have to accept that more funding is needed to pay off rent arrears if they want to avoid evictions. We could get to the stage that the government will pay off rent arrears to prevent evictions. It has already started and I think the pressure on the government to pay rent arrears will increase if the reason for eviction was shown.

    Jim Haliburton
    The HMO Daddy

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    HMO Daddy,
    I am not in 2 minds. I want them gone. I have for 6 months but I have endless disrepair items and blocked / delayed access to deal with. I want to be clear of a retaliatory eviction claim.

    They also cannot afford more rent so I am losing hundreds each month as well as the tenant breaking things. I do not want to pay to get to court with them going for free on legal aid because a judge MIGHT rule in my favour, but probably wouldn't. Even if I win they have no money to pay for the damage etc. I just want them out. S21 all the way.

    I don't agree S21 should go. If it does my properties are going too.

     
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    Interesting points Jim. Evicting on a stated fault basis would probably show a more accurate picture of who is the good guy and who isn't. It may well do exactly as you say in regards to more help being available for rent arrears situations. We need to have confidence the system will work correctly and not be based on the whim of a non housing specialist judge. People only use Section 21 because Section 8 isn't reliable. Or maybe didn't used to be reliable but is possibly better now???

    I can understand why most of us want the ability to be able to evict, even if we hope we never have to. I can understand why activists want blameless tenants to have a greater degree of security. I don't have a problem with compensating good tenants in the unlikely event of having to ask a good tenant to leave.
    As far as I can see most of us would be happy if there was a reliable, swift eviction route to remove bad tenants and possibly a slower route to remove good tenants should we want to sell, move into the property ourselves or the property needs extensive building works.

     
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    Big Daddy HMO you are at it again Jim, as I understand from before you are a HMO based Room Landlord so you are not letting the property as a whole but piece meal letting like the bedsits of the ‘60’s, your only concern is the get the room rent and empty the room meters weekly as you have advised us before. It is often the case those room LL’s are borrowed up to the eye balls with dozens or hundreds of Properties operating on cash return, nothing to loose it’s all just done on borrowed tax efficient finance, if they get a problem or two it doesn’t matter too much because its only a room here or there then they are off to Court with Section 8.
    Regular Landlords have far more to loose as often when there a problem the whole house or Flat is out of commission, not having income from other rooms in same property. Jim you don’t need Section 21 for most part you are dealing with one or two at the time and if they can’t pay you take them to Social to get Benefits, that’s no use to me I let property whole and I am a landlord not a Social worker. So you don’t need Section 21 fine keep out of it, we have a Regular whole house Business to run that’s based on S.21, of which we fought for, its implementation for the 10 years prior to 1988 Housing Act, when no letting was available and HMO’s not heard of for another 18 years after that so now you want to turn the whole thing it it head as if you are an authority on Section 21. Nice to hear from you.

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    I don’t smell the roses but I think I smell a rat.

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    Jo, don’t agree Jim is leading you up the garden path. The whole Rental Business is based is based on Section 21.
    Before that the was no Letting Market it has now created 2.5 million Landlords housing a quarter of the population how successful is that and you want to destroy it. As previously stated on here before S,21 you had sitting Tenants halving the value of the Property because they all were if you took them in they immediately became a sitting Tenant. When I was a Renter living in a Room I couldn’t get a Mortgage so I bought a plot in 1972 and Built my house by my own hand which I still have. I didn’t build it for someone else go and get their own. Same goes for any Property I bought I didn’t buy it for some one else, do the words Private Freehold Property not mean anything any more.
    So you ideas is putting the Tenant on a par with the owner can you justify that please.
    Ok let’s see the comparison I had to save for the site, pay for Architect, surveyor, Council fees, dig foundation’s, drainage, concreting, over site and I haven’t started to build yet, so if I were to list all that’s involved we would have the huge specification never mind the finance, have any of you got a clue. So you want to tell me the Renter that comes along and pays 5 weeks Deposit & a month’s Rent moves in should have the same rights as the man that done all this, what a comparison some difference in input. Incidentally I don’t take Deposits so it’s only one month’s Rent to be house for ever, Brilliant idea !

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    WE NEED TO KEEP S21. All thisd 'I don't mind losing it if S8 is altered to be more fair' approach is just LIVING IN CUCKOO LAND. Any changes are going to be WORSE FOR LANDLORDS. The burden or proof will always be impossible to reach. Only late payment (nobody cares) and non payment is all landlords can reliably prove. Tenants always have the upper hand. What is the NRLA thinking of my not taking issue with S21 removal?

    I am going to sell if it goes. I have a terrible tenant at present. I'm not getting stuck with her. I even think about reversing a truck into the house or petrol bombing it so it becomes condemned or uninhabitable just so I can get out of this situation!

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    Mr Hoogstraaten.
    Please don't think our aloud. That's Trump's big mistake. You could point out the realities, ie we are small businesses helping people get nice places to live. Unfortunately we have very little power and be easily abused by a criminnaly intent tenant The government wants some mug to take these people off their hands, which can be very distressing to the landlord.

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    If Tenants feel they are 'living in limbo, never truly able to settle' then they should apply for a council house and see how long that waiting list is, and while they are waiting for that, do what everyone else does, reign in all the unnecessary spending on vehicles, holidays, gadgets, clothes, ready meals etc and save for a deposit to buy the cheapest property they can find. If that means moving away from their home town then that's what needs to happen. If that means having a tiny home then that's what has to happen. If they don't want to do that then rent from the PRS and shut up about it not being permanent. of course it is not permanent, its not their property!!!

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    It's the old story, we started from the bottom and worked the way up, the young feel that they are ''entitled'' to it all now, right now.

     
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