x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Complete ban on evictions and additional protection for renters from today

The court service has from today suspended all ongoing housing possession action, which means that neither cases currently in the or any about to go in the system can progress to the stage where someone could be evicted. 

This suspension of housing possessions action will initially last for 90 days, but this can be extended if needed. 

This measure is designed to protect all private and social renters, as well as those with mortgages and those with licenses covered by the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. This will apply to both England and Wales.

Advertisement

The government guidelines clearly state that tenants are still liable for their rent and should pay this as usual. If renters face financial hardship and struggle to pay their rent, support is available. 

In the first instance they should speak to their landlord if they think they will have difficulty meeting a rental payment, and in this unique context we would encourage tenants and landlords to work together to put in place a rent payment scheme. 

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “The government is clear – no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home, nor will any landlord face unmanageable debts.”

Private landlords will currently have to give all renters three months’ notice if they intend to seek possession (i.e. serve notice that they want to end the tenancy) – this means the landlord can’t apply to start the court process until after this period. 

This extended buffer period will apply in law until 30 September 2020 and both the end point, and the three month notice period can be extended if needed. 

This protection covers most tenants in the private and social rented sectors in England and Wales, and all grounds of evictions. This includes possession of tenancies in the Rent Act 1977, the Housing Act 1985, the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Act 1988. 

After three months if the tenant has not moved a landlord needs to apply to court in order to proceed.

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

  • icon

    nationalization of all rented housing?

  • David Lester

    What protection for Landlords?

  • icon

    I feel sorry for anyone who has a malicious tenant who will be able to play merry hell and deliberately not pay "because I can" and/or trash everything thinking they can do it with impunity for the next three months. Of course, to add injury to injury, the eviction process will take twice as long to deal with the flood of applications once the emergency rules have ended, so a lot of landlords are going to go bankrupt or just decide that enough is enough.

    icon

    This is exactly what will happen, at present I have one tenant that might be stupid enough to do this, thankfully the other 15 are very unlikely to, but we can always make things very difficult for the rouge tenants in the future by naming and shaming them, we stick together and talk to each other.

     
  • icon

    How does this affect company let’s we let a property to JD Wetherspoons PLC had a call 2 days ago saying there not paying any rent. This is my partners only source of income where JDW made £135m last year......the companies tenants are getting 80% of there salary and a FREE house. She only has a small mortgage so a holiday doesn’t really help much. Not sure that seems fair :-(

  • Just Mogler

    My current posession order was going to court 23rdMarch. Email received advising court 'vacated' 3 days before. Soft touch approach Sec21 delivered 10Dec19 due to anti social acts and 'cuckoo' boyfriend. Rent (them receiving housing benefit) withheld immediatly. Now 4 months due and only words of departure. Luckily no mortgage so 'running with the tide'. Stuffed! No access and LL gas certificate due soon!!!??

  • icon

    Ok we have rented out our own property and we gave our tenant a section 21 2 months ago to vacate the property by the 25 of April because we are home less now and I have copd very bad and I need to get into our home what happens now

    icon

    I'm in exactly the same position. I have just returned from abroad - a very traumatic completely isolated lockdown in Poland and now I return to England and my home is essentially occupied and I can't do anything about it. It's my home and I went through legal channels and now I am homeless. What about that? Who can help me?

     
  • icon

    Please clarify. If I serve a s8/21 now, givine 3 months, can i begin the legal process at the end of June 2020?

    Matthew Payne

    If you serve section 21 with 3 months notice they move out in June...thats it. Are you anticipating the need to take them to Court?

     
  • icon

    If anybody doubted this is an extermination campaign, no doubt now

    icon
    • 28 March 2020 12:55 PM

    Yep for Govt this CV19 is manna from heaven.
    Along with the likes of Shelter and GR they will be welcoming the mass bankruptcy of many mortgaged LL.

    Make no mistake CV19 is far more effective than S24 in eradicating small LL.
    I will be removing some lodgers of mine if they don't pay their rent.
    There is plenty of demand.
    No way will I allow the law to bankrupt me.
    Many LL will just roll over and be bankrupted.
    Not me!

    It is clear that there will be no support for small LL.
    A reality check for many LL.
    If they survive they will surely adjust their ways of doing business.
    This must result in a far smaller PRS.
    The dopey Tories will achieve their objective of getting rid of mortgaged LL who invested in their own name.
    There will be NO sympathy for any LL bankrupted by this CV19 situation.
    That is why they are deluding themselves if LL will be bothered by Govt attempt to prevent tenants being removed.
    LL will just boot them out irrespective of the law.
    The alternative is bankruptcy.
    This is what I will be doing if needed.
    No way will I allow some scroat of a tenant to bankrupt me.

    But yes extermination of the private LL is continuing apace



     
  • icon

    Hi. I have rented out 3 properties now for a number of years. I have no mortgages on any of them and rely on my rental income to live off. Whats going to happen if any of my tenants cannot pay their rent? From what I can see there has been no provision put in place for this during COVID-19 outbreak.

    icon
    • 28 March 2020 13:09 PM

    Best you get a job then.
    Lots of field workers required.
    The immigrant won't be doing it.nor will the feckless welfare scroungers.
    Some sort of irony that rent defaulting tenants will force their LL to work in the fields so they can survive while tenants live for free.
    Something seriously wrong with society where this is permitted.

    Can't see the PRS surviving in it's current form.
    Wonder where all the tenants will live!?

     
  • icon

    All those anti-private LL organisations plus media hype for ever bashing Private LL's haven't a clue about business or don't have to just keep knocking us, if they are so good I put it to them why don't they buy the property and subsidize their Tenants to live in their property to see how they get on.
    I keep hearing about Mortgaged LL's but the fact is Mortgaged or not you can't house people for free.I now have 6 properties out of small portfolio occupied by people some who won't and majority unable to pay, either way the income has dried up because of circumstances & Government mad intervention. I believe only Benefit Claimants can afford housing in this situation. I would like Nick to get a dose of reality always knocking us and talking about campaigns to destroy us more. Supposing someone gave me a property for free I could not rent it for free obviously, I am not Social Services & with all the Regulatory requirements costing fortunes even a License fee in Harrow is £1310 for the Application plus the additional works that is likely to be required is substantial, the day to day running costs, Boilers nightmares those days, white goods (just replaced WM this Sunday morning £329), furnishings, penalties,Insurances, maintenance issues, in some properties I pay Council Tax, etc etc, OK all this Plus all my own labour is on the line for free or get someone-in who are hugely expensive, (try it sometime). Now Nick dearest have another little think, Best Wishes and more draconian taxes coming next week.

  • icon

    I have a tenant who was due to pay rent on 25 March. I haven't received it so far. He is an overseas student so his income hasn't been affected. On Thursday 26 March I asked when I could expect the rent to be paid and he told me he was transferring money that day and I'd receive it in 1-2 days. Yesterday he told me the money had been transferred (again) and it would reach me by Tuesday 31 March. I asked for evidence that the transfer had been made and I haven't had anything from him to show that the transfer has been initiated. He does have a Guarantor. I am going to send him a Rent Arrears notification tomorrow. If I don't receive the rent with 14 days of the due date I will send a second Rent Arrears notification to him and his Guarantor but I'm just wondering if he can get away with not paying the rent? I also believe he has returned to United Arab Emirates so my flat is unoccupied does that help?

    icon

    This rent holiday should only apply to those self isolating or those who have lost their jobs, as a blanket ban it is totally wrong. If you have a suitable guarantor you should be able to get your money out of them

     
icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal
sign up