The Government is to bring forward emergency legislation to ban evictions of private tenants, prime minister Boris Johnson said yesterday.
The pledge came after mortgage borrowers were promised payment holidays.
The Government had faced criticism that private renters had been left out of the earlier rescue package.
Yesterday, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that private renters were “worried sick” about being unable to pay rent if they fell ill.
While Johnson confirmed that legislation will be brought forward, he did not say exactly what the law will lay down. He did say that he would take steps to protect “other actors in the economy” – presumably in this case, landlords.
Within hours of his statement in the Commons, housing secretary Robert Jenrick said that emergency legislation would suspend new evictions; and no new possession proceedings through applications to the courts would begin during the crisis.
The three-month mortgage holiday offer extends to buy-to-let landlords.
David Cox, CEO of ARLA, said: “We are very conscious of the plight of tenants in these difficult times and appreciate any government action to help those affected by the current situation.”
In a joint statement the National and Residential Landlords Associations said: “No responsible landlord will be considering evicting tenants because of difficulties arising from the current situation.
“There does need to be some flexibility though, such as with dealing with a tenant engaging in anti-social behaviour. This could cause misery for fellow tenants or neighbours especially when they are going to be spending a lot of time together.
“In addition we need to do all we can to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“There should be national guidelines for local authorities to suspend routine inspections of properties and a temporary halt on enforcement action where landlords are unable to fulfil certain required obligations because of the health risk posed to them, tenants and contractors.”
Matt Downie, director of policy and external affairs at homeless charity Crisis, said: This is a hugely welcome announcement. While we await the detail, we hope this means anyone served an eviction notice will not be left facing homelessness as a result of the pandemic.
“We appreciate that this needs to be a workable solution for renters and landlords, but would stress that any repayment plan must be affordable for tenants.
“If someone loses their job because of the outbreak and has no income coming in, they cannot be faced with intolerable levels of debt once these emergency measures are lifted.”
Comments (11)
It the government are able to enforce lenders offering payment holidays, couldn’t they just as easily get them to offer interest free loans/overdrafts to tenants that can prove income hardship as a result of the virus.
If rents aren’t paid – even if they’re deferred, the whole chain breaks down. We don’t get paid so our staff may not get paid – so their landlords don’t get paid. We still need to do gas safetys and essential maintenance – without rent coming in, those contractors don’t get paid.
We will end up with contractors asking for payment in advance, tenants in big arrears and a 5 week deposit to take care of it..
It’s not workable
Absolutely spot on. Thing is that it’s much cheaper to make landlords pay for government incompetence, whilst at the same time looking all caring and cuddly by bashing landlords – again.
If the claim is genuine, then the government should be paying the rent, after all it is they that has made the decision that has resulted in this.
If not genuine … we have had a few already jump on the bandwagon (don’t work!!!) but they have been left in no doubt that they have to prove it is Covid-19 related.
“If someone loses their job because of the outbreak and has no income coming in, they cannot be faced with intolerable levels of debt once these emergency measures are lifted.”
Those debts could be so high for some … what a mess.
They have flung landlords under the bus. They should stop S24 many landlords will still be paying tax with no income They should stop 100% council tax payable on empty rental properties. This announcement although well intended will have rogue tenants rubbing their hands Landlords will not get this money back and when you are able to evict it will take 2years Agree they should just claim full rent from UC and it gets paid straight to landlord. Government can get it back vai tax system This will bankrupt many landlords
This criminally incompetent government should have forcibly quarantined ALL flights from China over a month ago. If they had, then this Chinavirus crisis would be far more manageable.
So now they magnanimously say that all tenants will be protected from eviction – by making landlords pay! Of course tenants need to be protected, but it’s the ****** government who should be doing that by covering their rents. However, perhaps this is yet another step by this rotten government to even further reduce the role that small private landlords play to pave the way for large corporate ones.
Its been with us since before Xmas. How long do you expect any government to close a border? Economical suicide! Many of those that have transmitted the virus have come from around Europe … so your thinking is we should shut our borders to everyone and for how long!!! Freedom of movement has always been a time bomb and will be no different next year, the year after and after ….
This is not the first time the world has seen a pandemic or as lethal as the common flu to the vulnerable. All the scientific evidence is that only those at risk are the main concern, the majority of the population may or may not even know they have or had it and will recover.
The concern was there is no treatment for the vulnerable. Well the Australian’s have just released they may have found a cure with two off the shelf drugs and everyone is holding their breath this will bring it all to an end very quickly.
I did not say we should have closed our border to flights from China, I said that all such flights should have been quarantined. Did you say ‘economic suicide’? What do you think we have now? They are planning to ‘lock down’ London. However, you are right to a certain extent that because of the equal incompetence of other European governments in not quarantining inbound Chinese flights, the virus would have reached us anyway. But it would have been less and the growth would have been slower, which is crucial as we await a cure.
So the landlords get a break, the tenants can’t be evicted and the agent is stuck in the middle with no income from those tenants to pass on to landlords and to stay in business themselves. Also with no relief on business rates. Hmmm, challenging.
As has been stated, the government should focus on HB and universal credit payments etc.
I fear the bad tenants will take advantage. Surely it is up to the benefits /.social security system to address unemployment payments. However it is yet again landlords that will feel the pressure because the system has not dealt with the rogue landlords which give us all a bad reputation. Enforced empathy is one thing I would support as anyone can fall.victim to the virus. I am just not sure how much abuse will arise. After all there are so many scammers and scumbags out there nowadays.
Rather than rush this in when agents are no prepared for new overnight legislation which is one of the biggest since the Housing Act 1988 came in let alone the changes over the last 8 years the govt could have said that it will assist and speed up Housing benefit payments to tenants in need (Universal credit)
I think in reality the benefits system will be swamped. I suspect the announcement had to be rushed but flexibility is needed for everyone including landlords that fall into significant difficulty as a result. The problem will be the mentality of those dealing with it as government shelter and media have been bad mouthing landlords so long everyone thinks of landlords as the evil. You only need to have contact with councils on housing matters and 90% of council staff assume landlord are rich bad people an image generated for political gain. Just imagine Corbyn and Mcdonell dealing with it they would have used the opportunity for even worse changes.