The abolition of Section 21 evictions will be a disaster without improvement to the courts system, a property industry chief insists.
Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, writes in Inside Housing that the Renters Reform Bill currently going through Parliament rests on a strong consensus. And he believes it has widespread support because it seeks to strike a balance - landlords lose Section 21 eviction powers but has improved grounds for possession in return.
But Fletcher argues that any ground for possession relies on a well-functioning court system - and without such a system, the strengthened grounds for possession are mythical.
He says that a well-functioning court system is not merely a return to the pre-pandemic normality because that in fact carried substantial delays. He writes: “Reform is needed because ‘normal’ is a very poor service, and with landlords relying solely on court-approved repossessions, normal is all they have. The likelihood is that normal would get worse too, as the workload of the courts increases with the new system.”
Fletcher cites digitisation as an example of what court reform could look like.
He writes: This would help improve case processing times, provide a far more customer-friendly service and help the system cope with greater volumes. The government is committed to digitalisation for possession cases, which is great, but it won’t provide any detail on how that project is progressing.”
You can see the whole article here, although to some readers it may be behind a paywall.
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