Landlords are reluctant to evict tenants, and when they do, it is for significant rent arrears or anti-social behaviour.
New research by the Residential Landlords’ Association counters claims that landlords evict tenants when they ask for repairs – so-called retaliatory evictions.
According to 1,760 landlords questioned, just over half (56%) had evicted tenants.
Of these, almost all were for rent arrears, followed by anti-social behaviour, damage and drug activity, while some landlords wanted possession because they needed to sell.
RLA chairman Alan Ward said: “We have been very concerned about claims that retaliatory eviction is a widespread practice, when there is very little hard evidence.
“As our survey underlines, the vast majority of evictions are down to rent arrears or anti-social behaviour.”
Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather has proposed a Private Member’s Bill to prevent ‘retaliatory evictions’.
But landlords answering the survey overwhelmingly rejected claims that they would evict if a tenant asked for repairs.
One said: “We positively encourage our tenants to tell us about repairs that need doing.”
The RLA is particularly worried about calls for Section 21 notices to be overhauled, believing that if landlords cannot evict tenants in rent arrears or guilty of anti-social behaviour easily and cheaply, they will withdraw from the sector.
There are also concerns that tenants in rent arrears could put in spurious repair claims to prevent eviction.
Comments (4)
It is OK for government lobbyists to make stuff up based on weighted market research and extrapolate the data in such a way that the research might as well not been carried out in the first place but when the lettings industry produces polar opposite evidence the methodology suddenly isn't valid.
Does any one know who Alex Hilton is and who he/she represents? When anyone posts "You really should feel free to contact us for a comment on such things" it is an indication that someone considers themselves very important indeed.
Retaliatory evictions, a whopping 1000 instances in 3,700,000… 0.027% according to CLG figures, is simply a manifesto must have for politicians. It is obvious that poor tenants exist,this discussion is simply about whose problem they are. The PRS has no obligation to house the feral fringe of society and no matter of legislation will ever enforce that obligation.
In 26 years of agency I have only had ONE landlord want to bring a tenancy to an end because his tenant wanted some essential repairs carried out. That was about 20 years ago. (I dis-instructed myself and put the tenants in touch with the Landlord/Tenant relation officer at the local Council.)
Any legislation put in place should be fair to all parties. As mentioned if 'retaliatory convictions' are not done then it won't matter but will otherwise protect those whom are acted against in this manner. However it is also important that tenants who act anti socially and/or do not pay their rent can be evicted quickly and fairly as it is not just the Landlord their behaviour impacts on (in anti social cases) but their neighbours, and behaviour like this is inexcusable. Whilst both sides throw rocks at each other it is unlikely that good legislation will be put in place, it is up to all the interested parties to give balanced guidance to Government so we don't end up with legislation that helps no one but adds more red tape.
Really Rosalind? RLA conducted a poll of landlords asking how many of them weren't very nice and by some miracle it wasn't many. This is so unscientific we didn't think anyone at all would write it up when we saw the press release. You really should feel free to contact us for a comment on such things. We would have said that our proposition never was that retaliatory eviction is common, only that it is large enough that the fear of it is a very real part of tenants' lives. Minor steps to protect tenants and reassure them will have a positive effect for tenants without harming landlords because, according to the RLA, landlords won't be caught by any such law as they're not doing it.