An article by Robert Booth and Kiran Stacey in the Guardian this week highlighted that a ban on no-fault evictions in England is unlikely this year.
Charities and non-profit organisations have urged the Prime Minister to pass a bill to ban “no-fault” evictions – we were promised this four years ago.
29,000 young people asked for help from their local council in 2021/22 because they were homeless or at risk of homelessness. Not only do we have a lack of social housing in this country, but under current housing legislation, known as Section 21, landlords can evict tenants without giving a reason.
After receiving a Section 21 notice, tenants have just two months before their landlord can apply for a court order to evict them.
Research suggested a renter is evicted every three minutes in England under the no-fault rule. (Shelter)
Local Solutions supports over 600 young homeless people each year with supported accommodation, mentoring and lifeskills, equipping them to successfully move on to their own home.
Finding a home to move into is getting even more difficult. A third of 1,900 people Shelter surveyed said that the last time they moved it took them longer than two months to find somewhere else to live.
The Renters Reform Bill would remove the right of landlords in England to evict tenants for no reason with only two months’ notice.
It causes social isolation and financial hardship, and traps people in cycles of poverty, struggle and uncertainty that are difficult, sometimes impossible, to break.
Delays in scrapping no-fault evictions risk young people being absorbed into the statistics for long term unemployed or long term homeless.
The government has been promising us a new system for private renters since 2019 – and in the meantime more than 11,000 householders this year have received a no-fault eviction notice. Delaying the bill into the new year will leave even more households homeless.
Landlords can too easily use and abuse the current system. Tens of thousands of households have faced homelessness because of no-fault evictions in the four years since the Conservative Party promised to ban them. We ask that the government commit to progressing the Renters Reform Bill swiftly, and to pass it into law as promised in the party’s manifesto.
