Evictions Or “No Fault Evictions” And The New Renters’ Rights Bill
Undoubtedly you will have heard about the discussions in parliament about getting rid of “no fault evictions” as this has been going on for quite some time now.
The so called “no fault evictions” actually arise from section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 which permits landlords to repossess their residential property when the assured shorthold tenancy (“AST”) has come to an end and no further AST has been entered and where the landlord has provided the tenant with at least two months’ notice in writing.
The section 21 process is there to ensure that if a tenant remains in the property after the expiry of the AST without agreeing to a new one that there is a mechanism by which the landlord can get their property back.
However, over the last few years there have been reports of landlords using section 21 notices for so called “revenge evictions” when tenants have complained of issues of disrepair or refused to agree to a substantial increase in rent.
The increase of these “revenge evictions” has led to the government looking at the legislation and trying to work out how to prevent this going forward.
It appears that successive governments have indicated a desire to make changes, but landlords and tenants had been left in limbo about the prospective changes.
The Kings Speech following the election in 2024 set out that the government planned to abolish section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 in favour of a new Renters (Reform) Bill. This Bill is currently going through parliament, but at the time of writing has not yet received Royal Assent and therefore is not yet law.
Currently, the Renters (Reform) Bill is with the House of Lords for the second reading. It will still need to go through the committee stage, report stage and third reading after this, before there is any consideration of amendments and Royal Assent given.
The Bill in its current form introduces several key changes to the grounds for possession that a landlord may utilise. The Bill is set to abolish section 21 evictions altogether and introduce new grounds requiring private landlords to have a prescribed reason for seeking possession of their property, which are set to include:
- the sale of the property; and
- student lettings.
Landlords will not be able to seek to take possession of their property within the first 6 months of a tenancy and will need to provide two months’ notice to the tenants.
There will also be a ground which will allow landlords to evict tenants, where the tenants have been in arrears with their rent for two months on three separate occasions within a three year period. The notice period for which will be four weeks rather than the two weeks typically seen with the current section 8 process.
24 October 2024