If section 21 doesn’t give tenants enough time then why not just extend it to three months. Quarter of a year should give plenty of time for tenants to find a new property. By scrapping section 21 the government are encouraging unscrupulous landlords to find reasons for eviction under section 8 and therefore marginalising the tenant from any prospective new properties during referencing. Equally landlords may instead opt for short term, holiday lets and company lets that don’t require AST’s to avoid the new rules and therefore further reducing the amount of long term housing on offer. Further to this why shouldn’t landlords be able to remove tenants if they need to - providing they give a reasonable time? If the government are in need of social housing schemes or reduced rents they shouldn’t have sold off council housing or should build more. It is not the private sectors job to pick up the pieces of years of neglect for social housing. We should all look at this from both sides of the coin but axing section 21 altogether is not going to benefit either landlord or tenants.
Scrapping Section 21 eviction process will signal many disputes forthcoming in the future. It will also pave way for the tenants to take upper hand. Other reasons for concerns are - damaging the property, non-cooperation, loss of money, energy and time to landlords, agents and others. According to me this is unilateral and does not give due justice to both - landlords and tenant. Already many cases are existing and the long time to decide the eviction is now more than six months. Incidents have been seen much damage to the property, running away before the bailiff process, non-payment of utility bills, council tax, arrears of rent and all other issues.
The landlord will be deprived of mortgage payments resulting in bad credit, fines and penalties. UK is already facing innumerable problems on account of Brexit. The above decision will add fuel to fire and changing the habit and tone of tenants. Of course there are bad tenants and landlords. But law is one for all and should be FAIR. The decision to scrap Section 21 is not in the interest of all but leading to many problems and issues coming in the way once enacted.
Murthi
Before abolishing Section 21, the government needs to refine the process of Section 8 because most landlords worked very hard for decades and they put all savings into the buy-to-let property as their pension. In the case of rent arrears, how are the landlords being protected??? Landlords have to work, to pay tax and mortgage. Why should they put up the unreliable and nasty tenants for weeks, and Section 8 becomes invalid if the tenants suddenly make a small payment to bring the rent arrears balance down to less than two months? Some tenants have the money to buy drinks and other favorites, but refuse to pay rent fully and on time. The bad tenants also deliberately avojd our calls. They answer their mobile phone when we used a new number. Totally pay no respect and ignore the landlord.
How do the government protect such hardworking landlords and punish the nasty tenants with rent arrears???
Hi
This has put me off owning property to rent out.
The government in scraping section 21 have made a terrible mistake.
Kind regards
Geraldine Vickers
Anyhow, they appear to have a stronger voice and are making tremendous impact on behalf of tenants as against landlords who are constantly the recipient of all the blows. The trust that should exist between landlord and tenant is almost completely eroded now as there is too much legal intrusion! and tenants have all the power to SUE the landlord. It is more of an attack mission. How I wish we can find a strong representative to put forward the frustrations and unfairness that are being experienced.
I don’t blame you, but, I wouldn’t back down. If you have not done anything wrong you can’t be picked on!
The problem the government has is that it doesn’t want small 2/3 property landlords it wants large private sector or charity behemoths, there is a distinct lack of rented housing stock but the government is intent on removing the small ll from the market place. Who do they believe will take up the slack when the small ll has gone,the public sector has no appetite?
I do not support the scrapping of Section 21
They should also change the law so that a Tenant that is maliciously causing damage to a property becomes a criminal matter we shouldnt have to wait another 2-6 months for them to cause further damage.
I’ve had to call the police when I was being verbally attacked by a Tenant before because I asked him when he would be paying his rent. He then started smashing windows of the property! The police rocked up and watched him…didnt stop him citing it is a ‘civil’ matter! Nothing civil about being attacked and intimidated while the police do nothing and then having to fork out for new windows to make the house secure before he went bleating to the council. He then decided to start fiddling with the boiler trying to break it by rocking up the pressure. Then when he finally succeeded threatened to light a fire in the living room if I did not put a new one in for him the same day!
Boilers are £2k to have fitted.
If I go and rent out a hotel room and trash it there are consequences!, why should Tenants get away with causing thousands of pounds of damage and walking away with no responsibility?
Now with GDPR it’s impossible to find the Tenant once they have left. Landlords then end up months in arrears, ontop of court fees and damage close to mental breakdown and financial ruin.
It’s all very well saying ‘take the matter to court and get a judgement’ you need a forwarding address to do that and even then in my experience they dont end up paying.
It doesnt help when you have one sided TV programs showing the minority of criminals that let property in awful conditions it’s like they look for the worse possible scenario for them when most Landlords are not even in the same ballpark. What they dont do is find out why they are staying with these types of landlord instead of moving! Grrr rant over…
It is totally not fair for the landlords. The government just want to protect the tenants not the landlords. We have lost £20,000 recently because the tenants didn’t pay us over 6 months and we have to go to the court to get it back with section 21 notice. Section 21 notice is the way called accelerated possession, it still took over 6 months to get our property back and they damaged our house, left our house like dumping ground condition, even the bailiffs said they were not human. We need to repair our house after they left. It cost us lots of money. If some of the cases are more complicated, with section 21 notices, it will take over years, someone we know, took them many years to get it back.
We are very responsible landlord. The process was so long and stressful. What made me more angry and stressful was that after we won the case, the court made mistake for the property address, and we need to pay for the solicitor to amend the court order. Another a few more weeks wasted to get the property back.
My life was in hell. And the tenants just walked away. Who will pay for what we lost?
I totally agree. We have been very responsible landlord. When tenants don’t pay, and we approach outside the property, even they have power to say if you don’t leave, we will call the police. What the hell it is. You work hard for someone, pay the mortgage, they live for free, and even you are outside the house, you have no power, they have got much more power than you and say they will call the police if you don’t leave.
What make me more angry, they having party in your house, enjoy their life, using your money to buy big TV, go holiday but not paying you rent.
Just rented out my property and I have spoken to a number of prospective tenants who have been issued with a Section 21 as the Landlord is selling their house, therfore, scaping the Section 21 would make no difference to them. I feel if Section 21 is scrapped this will lead to some Landlords leaving the rental sector and the one who stay will be far more be more selective to who they rent too. The result being the most vunerable finding it increasingly more difficult to rent a suitable property especially with a shortage of affordable housing.
Read lots of comments where landlords have had problems with Tenents. Many years ago I was given some advice which was “If in doubt keep them out”
I fail to see how this could help a good responsible tenant who always pays in time and care about the house as if it was their own.
Has anyone ever heard of a landlord, exercising section 21 for the sole sake of their own amusement? It is costly, stressful and time-consuming as it is.
And if this masterpiece of legislation isn’t for good people, who is it for?
All these comments are so true. Send them all direct to ‘James Brokenshire’ the housing minister! L/Ls seldom evict without good reason!
All good sense but in the uk it’s all become a joke, a sick one!
I’ve been both a tenant for quite some many years and recently also a landlord, so would like to think I can see appreciate both sides of the coin!
I was a good tenant though the fact of the matter is there are so many that sadly aren’t. Am very much in favour of scrapping s21 and the poll results speak for itself.
J
I’m a portfolio landlord living in Scotland and approved of the changes up here after seeing how my sister and friends were treated by bad landlords under the English system, BUT having now experienced the new rules first hand it is evident that the rule change is too general. One big problem is the student market - especially in Edinburgh where students are now keeping their accommodation through the summer which has lead to a massive shortage in Edinburgh fringe flat rentals this year and also a shortage in student accommodation as more landlords opt to do air Bnb and take the properties away from students. In Glasgow there’s quite a few students who do give their notice in the summer leaving HMO landlords with voids for three months and no option but to put the rent up to compensate for the summer void in accommodation that is specifically student focused.
And don’t get me started on the adjudication process - which up here is called the tier 1 and tier 2 tribunals. A friend has just had the urine extracted out of him by a tenant who refused to leave his flat and understood that the new system is about as fast as an oil tanker with a broken engine.
I totally agree with scrapping fees for tenants and giving tenants more security but until the policy is thought through by people who actually know about the industry then there will always be big problems.
Hi Paul, really interesting points.
I had seen the spike in short-term lets in Edinburgh, and many agree with you, attributing it to the new indefinite tenancies since December 2017.
Edinburgh is a bit of a special case though, with the three universities meaning an unusual amount of student housing is needed. And the many international festivals it hosts every summer mean that landlords are uniquely well placed to oscillate between student lets for 9 months and short-term lets over the summer.
One of the things that e.g. Generation Rent are worried about at the moment is that, just as you say, the lack of eviction powers will make ASTs (or PRTs in Scotland) so unattractive, that landlords would prefer to only do short term lets.
We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.
Sam