A charity claims some landlords are using what it calls “excessive” rent rises to effectively evict tenants.
Citizens Advice says the Renters Reform Bill, currently before Parliament, will only improve renters rights if forthcoming legislation prevents backdoor ‘no fault’ evictions from taking place - through rent rises and other reasons - despite the abolition of Section 21.
The charity claims to helped almost 2,000 people with Section 21 issues in May, the most in a single month on record and a 25 per cent increase since May 2022.
New grounds in the Renters Reform Bill allow landlords to evict tenants six months into a tenancy if they wish to sell a property or move family in. Citizens Advice claims 48 per cent of renters who have been evicted had been told their landlord wanted to sell up.
The charity says in a statement: “Worryingly, the new rules won’t require landlords to give evidence they have followed through on this once a tenant has left.”
Citizens Advice claims that last year, 1.8m households either had their rent increased or were threatened with an increase, with 300,000 renters “forced out of their home by a rent increase.” The charity does not source these figures in its statement.
Citizens Advice is urging the government to close what it describes as ‘loopholes’ in the Renters Reform Bill to give tenants the promised greater protection and security. It is also calling for the length of time new tenants are protected from ‘no fault’ grounds for eviction to be increased from six months to two years. And it wants steps to be put in place to ensure landlords who claim to need to sell a property can’t rapidly re-let it.
Matthew Upton - acting executive director of policy and advocacy at Citizens Advice - says: “Our advisers are increasingly hearing from renters who are being forced to uproot their entire lives after receiving a Section 21 notice.
“For too long, renters have lived in precarious situations with few protections while landlords have held all the cards. Reforms to the private rental sector are welcome but they’re open to abuse from unscrupulous landlords. The government must ensure reforms are watertight and not include loopholes which allow Section 21 evictions to continue by the backdoor.”
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2,000 x 12 months = 24,000 per year.
24,000 / 2,400,000 total PRS homes= 1%.
1% is a drop in the ocean.
That should be natural wastage levels of people retiring alone.
I’m surprised it’s not more like 50%-75% or so with all what’s going on.
2000 per month is the amount of people the charity has dealt with, not the amount in that situation, only a small proportion of renters would be going to the charity so the real number will be many times higher than 2000.
Taken from the MOJ site this morning is states for Jan to Mar 2023:
"The pattern is repeated for landlord possession actions. When compared to the same quarter in 2022, landlord possession claims increased from 19,031 to 23,395 (23%), orders from 12,966 to 17,660 (36%), warrants from 6,874 to 10,469 (52%) and repossessions from 3,809 to 6,421 (69%)."
So I believe if you prorate the above we are looking at nearly 100k of homes per year. The 'charity' is probably using these figures as a basis. I don't believe they are helping everyone. They are telling lies like the Tories, Labour, Shelter and Generation Rant.
Tipping my hat to you Nick great level of detail there.... I would say you need to get out more but all the tenants not paying means we all have to tighten our belts..!
Steve, you are right that is only what the charity deal with. Bearing in mind a small percentage of them will be genuine cases of needing help most of them are 'Signposted' to go there by councils and other groups. Unnecessarily inflating figures, but it does show the increase of landlords selling up and that is dramatic...
It's just a quick Google Peter. Didn't take much time. Work is quiet....
It's an interest for me as I am keen to see how the Reform Bill will impact on landlord's issuing S21s. I am shocked there are not many more.
How many times do we need to say it - LLs do not routinely evict good tenants! There are a lot of reasons for rent rises, but they are only possible if the market can stand them. The lack of availability at present is pushing rents up & some (many?) tenants can't afford them. The solution is to increase availability not drive even more LLs out of the PRS.
These guys are crazy. It’s like saying the Bank of England are raising interest rates as a back door mechanism so BTL landlords get their houses repossessed ! These lot are fools
Trying to get these morons to see sense is pointless, they DO understand but choose not to acknowledge it as it doesn’t fit their agenda. 👎🏻 This will end badly for ALL tenants.
With the massive increase in mortgage rates and Section 24 rent rises are going to have to be huge. This isn't a case of the landlord being greedy as the landlord is unlikely to be able to increase rent enough to cover the extra mortgage payments and turnover tax. All of the rent increase will go to HMRC and the mortgage lender. The alternative is for the landlord to sell up as the property may be loss making without a rent increase. If that is the route the landlord chooses to go the tenant will then have to pay market rent to someone else plus have the expense and inconvenience of moving.
Tenants aren't being impacted as much as homeowners by increased housing costs and have far more help available to them. A homeowner coming off a mortgage fix is likely to see their payments increase by hundreds a month. Anyone who bought in the last 2 or 3 years is unlikely to be able to sell for as much as they paid for the property, so are effectively trapped. Tenants have various options - apply for Discretionary Housing Payments, move to a cheaper area, etc. Tenants also don't have the added expenses of insurance or maintenance that homeowners have to pay.
Even Social Housing rents rose by 7% this year, so tenant groups need to start being realistic about the financial realities of landlords and realise that we aren't charities. We went into this to provide for our families and our futures. Some of us feel very responsible for our tenants and fully understand how upsetting it would be if we decided to sell. But we aren't charities. The properties have to be financially viable. For many years there was little point in selling as it was hard to get any kind of return on the money if it was invested elsewhere. That's all changed now and has to be factored in to our calculations.
If Citizens Advice want to do something useful they should lobby the government to reverse Section 24, which would allow us to survive with much lower rent increases.
Also campaign for reinstatement of CGT taper relief to give us an incentive to stay in the industry for the long haul. Other countries have zero CGT after a certain number of years so it's perfectly standard practice.
Citizens Advice should address all its Citizens.
Landlords have endless costs in addition to every day costs imposed by Council’s and new Government Regulation’s.
As said not but not least several Mortgage’s rises and Section 24 tax, why don’t they have a go at Nat West.
Tricia. They have to drive us out for the boys to take over, what could be better for them than create a shortage and high rents, look around you high rise Flats going up order of the day, a readymade Business how can they loose with the Government in their pocket, the Concrete mixer cannot stop.
Gove’s Law was designed to destroy PRS and very successful,
Now he needs yet another Law to destroy AirBnB because he inadvertently made it a huge success with the So Called Renter Reform Bill, so now he needs another Law caused the first one he made well done.
Think Gove going after AirBnB will come unstuck, they have enough money to stand on as long as they need to and I personally think we will all benefit from their stand against the government.
“excessive” rent rises = a result of 'excessive' mortgage cost rises / 'excessive' tax bills and 'excessive' licensing and other costs. It's really not rocket science.
Landlords do not want to evict tenants. It's ideal for a tenant to stay for as long as the landlord owns that property.
For some reason the media want to push the agenda that landlords want to serve section 21's left right and centre for the fun of it, which is so far away from the truth.
It works I've done it when I want to see the back of a tenant, put their rent up and off they go
I am also of this thinking and then In can get rid of all my rental properties if they decide to leave.
It may be the only way, but of course they could refuse to pay and stay in the property 'rent free' until they are removed.
Probably around 12 months plus now, here in Wales, with these new contracts amounting to over 30 pages of detail, all aimed at restricting the landlord/owner's right to his or her property.
If their was a simpler, easier and efficient way to evict tenants you wouldn't need to use this tactic.
London Evening Standard says Renters know what it like to feel the pain but no mention of Mr Michael Gove the main cause of landlords selling up and high rents, no mention of Section 24 tax, no mention of the removal of Section 21 the very foundation of all Private letting.
What kind of Journalist leaves out all the facts.
It’s a right stitch up the Concrete mixer cannot stop.
We are been replaced by the big boys with their modular high rise homes money for old rope.
Easy Construction maximum profit just portable cabins manufactured off site and delivered pre finished. Simply stack on top of each other and clipped together.
How can they loose with Government on side.
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