The Generation Rent campaign group has made its second plea to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick in 24 hours - both on the subject of evictions.
Yesterday Letting Agent Today reported that the group had co-signed a letter asking the government to pledge that no one who has lost income because of Coronavirus will be evicted from their home even after the ban is lifted late next month.
Now the same group has written to Jenrick again, as well as to Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, with a list of questions which it says ”the government must answer to give clarity to renters under threat of eviction.”
Generation Rent claims new rules revealed by the government to ensure eviction proceedings are conducted efficiently and safely after they resume on August 24 are “inadequate” and adds “It is unclear how they will work in practice and will provide any protection for renters struggling to pay their rent due to Covid-19.”
The new rules say that for all applications made before August 3, the landlord or agent must notify both the court and defendant in writing that they wish to continue the case. Without this reactivation notice cases started prior to August 3 will not resume.
Secondly, the landlord or agent should ascertain whether the tenant is shielding or is in some other way vulnerable to Coronavirus.
The landlord or agent must also itemise arrears in writing, ideally as part of the reactivation notice, if this is relevant to the eviction.
Finally the court officers are to have greater leeway over the timetable for proceedings to ensure social distancing and other safety measures can be ensured.
The Generation Rent leader - former Labour Baroness Alicia Kennedy - says: “These rules alone are worthless and will not help the vast majority of renters who are at risk of losing their home, as judges will not have the legal powers necessary to prevent Section 21 no fault evictions or Section 8 evictions for rent arrears built up during the pandemic.”
She continues: “Coronavirus has created a rent debt crisis, which is set to get worse as the furlough scheme is wound down. Renters who have been left out of government support schemes have now been left in the dark.
“The government must provide clarity on how renters affected by coronavirus will be protected from eviction and homelessness.”
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Perhaps they have realised that yesterday's plea fell on deaf ears. Are they now in panic mode now? This sort of reactions shows how dysfunctional they are. Clearly they have revealed that they are not a force to be concerned about.
So please carry on with the evictions lads and if you can see your way clear to escalating matters to the High Court for eviction then please do so. You never know you may end up being part of a special programme of If you can't pay, they'll take it away. I really look forward to seeing that one.
As a letting Agent for 25 years I would welcome a discussion with Generation Rent to ascertain exactly what their proposals are and how they would like the issues of non payment of rent dealt with.
If they would like to contact me - Mike Culliney - mike@mrc-property.co.uk
The fact remains that, whether you see it as support for tenants OR landlords, around 1 in 5 tenancies have either negotiated rent deferments, reductions or are in arrears. As furlough winds down this will get worse. Requiring the government to plan ahead now, to put sensible measures in place benefit the PRS as a whole and will help mitigate a lot of issues that lie ahead. I am not for one second advocating a moratorium on evictions- but if that does happen then there clearly needs to be income support for landlords. We should not laugh at the government's lack of comprehensive action here- it shoulkd concern each and every one of us.
Great to see GenRent outplayed by NRLA. there was a massive risk S21/S8,G8 could have been watered down significantly, soto see the minister side with landlords and reel off all of the nrla’s figures was a welcome change. Haven’t seen ARLA anywhere on this.
If these people are crowding Jenrick so often, then good for them.
My issue is where the hell are all the Landlord organisations for LL defence? By this, it seems exactly nothing.
They should be on his head doe bringing inb a faster and easier eviction protest
They shouls be urging him to keep Sectio 21 and make it even better.
Where are they, and why are they so quiet and weak?
I would have thought that S21 should be retained but only for the fault based eviction caused by rent defaulting.
All other reasons can go to the S8 process which one accepts would take far longer.
However as soon as rent defaulting occurred then the new S21 process would apply.
Most tenants subject to a S8 eviction process would tend to stop paying rent neatly falling into the revised S21 process of eviction.
Whilst it would be a real pain using S8 consider that most evictions are for rent defaulting.
So with a revised S21 process only being allowed in rent defaulting cases Shelter etc wouldn't be able to ever again claim it was a non-fault eviction if it could only be used for rent defaulting.
I'd give up S21 rights providing it was kept for rent defaulting only.
The only real difference between accelerated possession w/S.21 and mandatory arrears grounds S.8 is the latter requires a hearing…but the Notice period is shorter. I don’t want S.21 gone at all, but there’s barely anything gained by your suggestion.
Generation rent and councils have realised that the will have to cough up the money so only way they do not end up paying is to ask the government to pressure landlords.
The government have supported these people with generous handouts
The landlords are not going to keep on paying for ever.
Time for all to realise and government need to reverse their laws over the recent years
Or we will end up back as we were in sixties. We had lot of council houses and little private rentals as no one would invest.
Now no council house. No lifetime tenancy, and council have spent all the money.
Unless the government wants to spend billions in new housing which they have failed to build .
This people better wake up and work with the landlords or the issues is going to get worse.
The landlords have invested in rundown house and upgraded them to make liveable for tenants.that is their business.
The so called charities have not invested in anything but live off government grants and pretend to be better at managing these issues and can only come up with one solution that keep on give us and tenants everything for free .
Wake up you people get your brains out of you backsides
@lukearon
My S21 would be more effective because it wouldn't require any County Court Action.
Just serving the S21 would be sufficient.
So after 2 months of rent default with S21 being served on the 2nd day of the 2nd month then 14 days later Police may remove tenant
Job done
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