The government has pledged to “guarantee” that landlords will be able to repossess properties more swiftly through the courts as part of reforms to the rental market.
The pledge was made by Housing Minister Rachel Maclean at a fringe event held at the Conservative Party conference, organised by the think tank Bright Blue and sponsored by the National Residential Landlords Association.
The Renters Reform Bill will see Section 21 repossessions end. The NRLA has warned that the replacement system will fail without urgent reforms to ensure the courts are able to swiftly process possession claims where landlords have good cause.
At present it takes an average of over half a year between a private landlord making a claim to repossess a property through the courts to it actually happening. The NRLA warns that this is simply too long, especially where tenants might be committing anti-social behaviour or if they are in extreme rent arrears.
Now the Housing Minister has pledged that the courts will process such cases more quickly. She told the fringe event that it was “very important” that alongside the Renters Reform Bill landlords had “a guarantee” that where possession cases do end up in court, they will be processed much faster than at present.
NRLA chief executive Ben Beadle says: “Without the confidence of knowing that where they have good cause they can regain their property swiftly, the exodus of landlords from the market will continue. All this will do is make it even harder for renters to find a place to live.
“The Minister’s comments are welcome, but they need to be backed up by clear plans setting out actions that will be taken and a timeframe for implementation. That must include investment in new staff and greater use of technology to process cases more swiftly.”
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A guarantee from politicians. No thanks.
It’s good Beadle’s About once again “welcomes” their proposals. He “welcomes” just about everything including Gove back as the Levelling Down secretary.
I don’t trust what they put in place will ever be as effective as S21. In my experience even that’s far too complicated to use.
We simply don't believe that.
The court KPIs must clearly show backlog cases are continually rising. If these politicians were CEO quality, they would have acted well before now to cut court waiting times. But they are useless. It’s a shame we have to pay for them to perform this badly for us.
Fatuous comment from Housing Minister Rachel Maclean - she’s not in the Ministry of Justice.
The Court system is so comprehensively knackered, there's no way it will be possible to 'speed it up' any time soon. This is just another empty promise.
Wholesale removal of Housing matters from the court system is the only sensible direction but as this will take 'efficient organising and restructuring' by the politiciams it can't possibly happen!
The restructure of the court system needs to happen first before RRB even starts. If not then landlords will continue to sell and existing renters will be paying more.
Something needs to happen to the court system, a good kick up the backside wouldn't go amiss
There is no mention how things are going to be speeded up. It's easy to say it, hard to do it.
Swift repro we know that'll never happen
Next thing she'll be telling anyone daft enough to listen that pigs CAN fly. Meanwhile properties to let are becoming as rare as rocking horse droppings as rents ( especially in London) go into orbit along with homeless figures. Outlawing section 21 removes almost any control a property owner has over his/her property and places it in the hands of a third party in the vain hope they will allow the property owner to regain vacant possession.
The politicians cannot control or monitor the justice department, so swift access and swift removal of bad tenants will not happen. Despite this, if RRB becomes law, then there will be full on disaster for LL, who will swiftly sell, causing furorefor the tenants. Gov't cannot build sufficient addional housing needed every year, so existing good tenants will suffer. The govt is also giving ammunition for good tenants to become bad.
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