Should illegally evicted tenants get damages from landlords?

A study of almost four years of cases reported to Citizens Advice has suggested that illegal eviction and landlord harassment are only small parts of the charity’s workload - but it has thrown up some radical recommendations for change.

The Scottish network of Citizens Advice has looked at cases which it handed between April 2019 and December 2022 and found that “advice on harassment and illegal eviction was a small yet persistent proportion of all housing advice” requested from the charity, and that this demand “did not noticeably decrease during the pandemic, despite the public health orders in place.”

However, its says that of those harassment and illegal eviction cases it did handle, many involved informal housing arrangements: many clients did not have written tenancies, rented from an acquaintance, or their landlord was not registered as required under Scottish legislation. 

The charity then goes on to make recommendations, including radical ones not see before in the sector.

For example it calls for the Scottish Government to develop, monitor and evaluate more effective routes for redress for people affected by illegal eviction, such as “a new approach to civil damages.”

There is also a recommendation for the Scottish Government and local authorities introduce mandatory training for landlords before being able to register; and to introduce harsher penalties for landlords who illegally evict, including temporary removal from the landlord register if applicable, and/or fines if they continue to let out property without undertaking the above mandatory training and paying damages. 

The government north of the border is also told by Citizens Advice that it should explore ways of collecting better data on illegal eviction, so hotspots for this type of activity can be identified and better enforced against. 

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