Michael Gove confirms “No-fault evictions will be "outlawed".
This morning, Housing Secretary Michael Gove told Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC that ‘No Fault Evictions’ will be banned by the next general election.
It’s difficult to watch this play out in a “Ground Hog” kind of way because since the announcement was made in 2019 that Section 21 (Form 6A) notice would be abolished, nothing much has really changed.
Of course, the Renters Reform Bill which will serve as the vehicle to abolish the Section 21 notice, is currently at the Report Stage, but the government has clearly stated that a ban of the notice cannot be enacted until the court system is improved, something confirmed by Michael Gove last year.
When asked by Laura Kuenssberg if he could guarantee that ‘unlawful evictions’ would end by the time of the next general election, Mr Gove responded that: "We will have outlawed it and we will have put the money into the courts in order to ensure that they can enforce that." A woolly response that is most definitely not possible because reforming the courts will not be a quick fix.
The narrative from organisations representing landlords, tenants and even the Labour Party are not helpful and demonstrate that the intention to abolish the notice is a distraction, a piece of ‘puff’. We all know the the real issue lies not with landlords relying on a section 21, but with lack of housing.
Just to clarify :-
The Section 21 (Form 6a) is NOT an eviction notice and never has been. The purpose of the notice is to allow the landlord to obtain ‘vacant possession’ and let’s remind ourselves, that NOT all notices served progress to the next stage of Accelerated Possession and then to eviction by bailiffs.
The Pandemic created a 2 year backlog in the courts from which we have yet to recover.
Recruiting Judges has proven problematic. Giving evidence to MPs in November, Ian Burnett, who was then the lord chief justice of England and Wales, said the judiciary had taken “certainly every step that we can think of to try to mitigate the problem of reduced judicial capacity” – an “acute problem” that he warned was a major barrier to tackling the backlog in the courts.
Tenants who have been served notice and who are seeking support from councils, are openly told to ‘stay put’ and wait for an eviction notice (court order) because if they make themselves voluntarily homeless, they will not be rehoused by the Local Authority.
Since 1997 when Buy-to-Let mortgages were introduced, coincidentally, the same year the Housing Act 1988 was amended and Assured Tenancies were replaced with Assured Shorthold Tenancies, private landlords have been bolstering the gap in social housing created by Right to Buy.
The Conservative manifesto promised to build 300,000 homes a year in England by the mid-2020s, a target which has not been met. Yet, when Tony Blair was in power (1997-2007), the national housebuilding target was 200,000 new homes a year. Again, these targets were not met. It was only in 2005 that the number of homes built in the UK each year finally broke the 200,000 ceiling.
In short, the Renters Reform Bill may provide some reassurance for tenants in the short term, but the reality is that in the long term, abolishing section 21 will not magically resolve the shortage of housing in England. Anyone that thinks differently is, sadly, deluded.