#'and ALSO that's why you got MORE mentally ill when sir james found us rather than less' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

enetproperty-blog · 5 years

Text

Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions to be Banned

Section 21 no fault notices and evictions could be banned under Conservative plans for the private rented sector says David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com. But the losers will be the more vulnerable and “risky” tenants who will find they are increasingly shut out of private renting. Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions to be Banned Oh crikey! What’s this? The Conservatives are going to get rid of Section 21 (so called “no fault evictions”), thus aping a Labour policy and copying what they already have been doing for a year or two in Jolly Scotland. And here is next PM hopeful (or one of them), James Brokenshire on the TV and radio to explain it all. He’ll be very pleased with himself as the story has got first or second billing on the main news. And why not, as it was all planned before the weekend. Journalists, including me had been briefed (or leaked to by other journalists) and most held their water (as instructed by the government) until Monday. So all were ready with the story. Suddenly the Tories are the private rented sector tenants’ friends, just in time for their votes at the next general election, which gets closer every day with every wrong turn on Brexit. Read the headline and it sure sounds like its more bad news for the private landlord, even though it is just a “consultation”. My brother is soon emailing to say, “Who needs Corbyn and the Marxists when the Tories will clobber private landlords (again) first!” But is it really that bad? On one of the TV channels, the presenter asks Mr. Brokenshire what will happen to people who are going away for a year, to work say. Surely, they will now just not let their property out, draining the sector of yet more stock – and leaving their homes empty. After all, would you risk it is the tenants had every right to stay until they fall off the perch? Section 21 No Fault Notices – Possible Exemptions But Mr. B is ready for this one. As well as some vague talk about possibly speeding up the processes via some sort of special housing court, he also implies there would be exemptions for situations like the expat one. So I got to wondering who would police such “get out clauses”. Mmm. Not the local authorities – they have more laws to use against landlords than you can shake a stick at, but usually don’t use them due to lack of resource. Even those town halls who have big cash coming in from selective licensing schemes don’t seem to do much with it, (with the exception of Newham), other than employ a bunch of people to collect the dough coming in from all the good landlords who have dutifully joined and paid their license fee (while the bad ones hide in the darkness safe in the knowledge that their tenants may have their own reasons for not grassing them up). (Think illegal immigrants / folks who lack confidence / the mentally ill… the list of trembling tenant types is very long!) So what will landlords response to this be? Well, some will see the taking away of Section 21 (no fault notices) as just one more piece of regulation – and another reason to get out of the sector, leading to a shortage of private rental accommodation. “Hooray”, say GenRent, “We can then buy the properties that the landlord sell – and the flood of stock will mean they will be cheaper too”. But that pre-supposes folks want to stay in one place (owning a home is not as flexible as renting) and if they do, that they can get a mortgage anyway. (“Help to Buy” or “Help to Make Persimmon Execs Rich” as I call it, won’t be there forever – and certainly not under the Corbynistas). Other landlords, will stay in the game – and likely find work arounds. Maybe they will all become expats (or pretend to) and seek that exemption. Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions – Vulnerable and More Risky Tenants Will be Left Out in the Cold But one thing is for sure, the more “risky” tenant may become less attractive to the average landlord. What do I mean by risky? I’m going to introduce an example, which is actually not that unusual, but it illustrates the point well. Imagine you are a private landlord. You don’t have a portfolio of properties, maybe you have just one or two, even three say. But you are not doing this full time. You are like the majority of landlords in the UK. Now imagine you have a choice of letting to two tenant types – and Section 21 has been abolished. Oh, and this is not a “Conservative Section 21” abolition with “get outs” with the opportunity to say you are going away for a year to work on an oil rig, so you can come back, dust off your overalls and hard hat and get your home back. No, Sir. This is a Corbyn one. This is Section 21 No Fault Notices with no “get out” clauses. In this version, the tenant gets to stay in your property for life, and life really means life, unless they don’t pay the rent for two months, which takes 5 to 6 months to go through the courts before you finally get your home back. The tenants can be as horrible as they like, annoy the neighbours, mess up the property, but as long as they just about pay the rent, they can stay in your property for life, even until after you are dead possibly! Now imagine two tenants turn up. One is an aspiring graduate couple. The other is a couple who have come from a council recovery programme from the Hostel Drug-New Life Restart programme. Of course, you’d like to help the couple on the recovery programme. Of course you would. If there still was a Section 21 No fault Notice option, you could always say, “Well, I gave it a try, but the annoyed neighbours ringing me up every night was just too much, so I gave them notice in the end”. But with no Section 21 No Fault Notice option, would you be as likely to take the risk? The tenants could be there for life, unless they are dumb enough to do something like not pay the rent for 2 months or run a cannabis farm at the property – and get caught. So, vulnerable people and other potentially risky tenants will certainly find it harder to get private rented accommodation. Maybe Polly Neate, the boss at Shelter has thought this through and has an answer. But I doubt it. Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions – Joe Halewood View Joe Halewood, who could no way be described as a private landlord lover, but is someone who does understand the private rented sector and housing generally, has written a great piece on this. If he can see that one of the key flaws in removing Section 21 is that, then why not the zealots at Shelter and Generation Rent? He wrote at his blog at wordpressSpeyjoe2, as follows: This doesn’t just affect general needs rented tenants but everyone who is in a homeless hostel or in a domestic violence refuge as the exit from these is mostly to the private rented sector. If hostels and refuges can’t move people on then they can’t move people into homeless hostels or domestic violence and abuse refuges! Yet today we see Polly Neate the chief executive of Shelter and previously chief executive of Women’s Aid lauding the proposed removal of the no fault eviction on mainstream TV, radio and across social media when the policy will see more homeless on the streets and more women having to suffer domestic violence and abuse because there is nowhere they can flee to that is available! Today we also see the rump of the social rented sector lauding this proposal too as good news. Let’s hope every housing association stops using ‘starter tenancies’ with immediate effect as these too can be ended by a no-fault eviction as they are the same AST tenure as used across the private rented sector and last year official figures show 83% of new housing association tenancies were these no-fault eviction starter tenancies. Joe Halewood Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions Ban – Data Shows it is Not Needed Government data shows that on average tenants live in their rental properties for over four years and that in 90 per cent of cases tenancies are ended by the tenant rather than the landlord. Their data also shows that it takes over five months from a private landlord applying to the courts for a property to be repossessed to it actually happening. Research by Manchester Metropolitan University for the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) has found that in a large majority of cases where tenants are asked to leave their properties under Section 21 notices, there is a clear reason. Half of the notices are used where tenants have rent arrears, are committing anti-social behaviour or damage to the property. Other common reasons include the landlord needing to take back possession of a property for sale or refurbishment. The report’s authors argue that this “raises questions” about whether the use of Section 21 notices can properly be described as ‘no fault’ evictions, as some have called them. Sources: (Thanks to the Residential Landlords Association for these) The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Residential Market Survey for March 2019 can be accessed at: https://www.rics.org/globalassets/rics-website/media/knowledge/research/market-surveys/uk-residential-market-survey-march-2019-rics.pdf. It warns that: “In the lettings market, tenant demand continued to rise for a third successive month (non-seasonally adjusted data) while landlord instructions slipped further. On the back of this, contributors are pencilling in rental growth of approximately 2% over the coming twelve months. At the five year horizon, the imbalance between supply and demand is expected to lead to an acceleration in rental growth, which is seen averaging around 3%, per annum, through to 2024.” In Q4 2018 the mean average time it took for a private landlord to make a claim to the courts for a property to be repossessed as it actually happening was 22.8 weeks. See table 6a at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/778386/Mortgage_and_Landlord_Possession_Statistics_Oct-Dec_18_Annex.pdf. Manchester Metropolitan University’s report, Homelessness and the Private Rented Sector, can be accessed at: https://research.rla.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/MMU-Homelessness-and-the-private-rented-sector.pdf. Page 28 notes: “our research raises questions around whether S.21 terminations can be described as ‘no fault’ evictions.” The English Housing Survey Headline Report for 2017-18 can be accessed at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/774820/2017-18_EHS_Headline_Report.pdf. Page 18 notes that in 2017/18, private sector tenants had been living in their current properties for 4.1 years. The English Housing Survey 2016-017 report for the private rented sector found that 10.1% of tenants left a private rented property over the previous three years because their landlord asked them to leave/gave notice. See annex able 3.3 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/723885/Private_Rented_Sector_Chapter_3_Figures_and_Annex_tables.xlsx ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS Services for Private Landlords We help landlords and property investors by showing them how to make money in the private rented sector using ways which are fair to tenants and which involve minimal risk. Our advice is completely independent. We take don’t commission payments or fees from anyone, ever. Services to Businesses and the Public Sector We advise a range of organisations too to help them develop and improve their services and products for private landlords. David Lawrenson, founder of LettingFocus, also writes for property portals, speaks at property events and is regularly quoted by the media. HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG: Blog THE HOME PAGE OF THE MAIN SITE: http://www.LettingFocus.com For general information on our CONSULTING SERVICES: Consultancy and Seminars For ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY FOR PRIVATE LANDLORDS: Property Advice CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – from both organisations and private landlords: Testimonials IN THE MEDIA: Recent Press Coverage BOOKS: “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING”: Our book is the highest selling personal finance and property book in the UK. Click here to Find Out More and Buy it. And if you are from an organisation and would like to bulk buy, please ask us for special rates. “BUY TO LET LANDLORDS GUIDE TO FINDING GREAT TENANTS”: Also, get this great new guide here, which covers everything you’ll ever need to know to avoid either you or your letting agent getting anyone other than the perfect tenant. Click Here to Buy It. BOOK FOR TENANTS: Kids going off and renting for the first time? My Book for Tenants is also Available TO JOIN OUR FREE NEWSLETTER MAILER which goes to over 3,990 people (as at Jan 2019) just send an email to [email protected] We do not send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers, though we occasionally mail landlords about good products from third parties. Please put us on your “white list” to ensure you receive our emails. OFFERS ON PRODUCTS FOR LANDLORDS and TO ADVERTISE YOUR PRODUCTS to LANDLORDS: Landlords Resources PERUSE LAST TEN BLOGS BY GETTING THE RSS FEED: Click Here NEXT ANNUAL SEMINAR EVENT FOR LANDLORDS: Landlord and Property Letting Seminar TWITTER PAGE My thoughts on property, personal finance, plus a lot of other random things: Twitter Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2019. Please link to us here or quote us. We actively pursue copyright infringements.The post Section 21 No Fault Notices and Evictions to be Banned appeared first on Letting Focus.

https://www.lettingfocus.com/blogs/2019/04/section-21-no-fault-notices-and-evictions-to-be-banned/

#General #No Fault Eviction #Section 21 Notice #No fault evictions #No Fault Possession

0 notes