Who Knew This Would Happen?

It is a Wednesday afternoon at Stratford housing court, and every seat in the waiting room is full. Over the next few hours, a conveyor belt of tenants and lawyers file into the courtroom to discuss their housing disputes – up to 29 cases are dealt with in a single day. In one case, a tenant is trying to buy more time after receiving a section 21 no-fault eviction earlier in the year, before they were banned. He has had no luck finding emergency housing with his local council. His landlord wants him out in the next 14 days, but he says he needs more time. He is off work due to chronic ill health, and has three children aged eight, five and one – the two eldest are due back at school next week. He wants the maximum 42 days, but the judge grants 28, meaning he could be facing homelessness by the end of the month.

In another case, the judge postpones a section 21 eviction order made just before the new Renters’ Rights Act came in, as some of the documentation was proven to be out of date. This gives the tenant more time to find a new home.

And the landlord more delay in selling or re-renting the place, but who cares about that? 

While tenants try to delay their evictions, landlords make requests for their cases to be moved to the high court in an attempt to speed things up – the current wait for bailiffs in this part of London is seven months. Lawyers have said a wave of last-minute no-fault evictions, and a growing number of landlords selling their properties, is pushing more renters into homelessness and driving England’s housing courts to breaking point.

Who could have predicted this? Everyone, and they did! But the government had the bit between their teeth and didn’t listen, as usual.

“There was a lot of talk about no-fault evictions ending, but technically they haven’t – we’re getting a lot of section 8 notices where the tenant isn’t at fault, but the landlord has a right to sell,” Sidki said. “Sometimes these are tenants who have lived in the property for a decade, and they can’t find anywhere else to go.” Lawyers said the lack of affordable homes for renters to move into meant they were increasingly delaying eviction as long as possible. Many local authorities have also told tenants they must resist eviction in order to access emergency housing support.

My brother had this issue with his tenant. 

Nye Jones from Generation Rent said: “The fact so many landlords uprooted tenants’ lives just because they still could, shows how badly we needed greater protections and the end of section 21. 

“Ideally local authorities should be providing more support to people who are on the cusp of homelessness than just ‘stay at home until the bailiffs come’. But it’s a sad fact that they want to avoid putting them in temporary accommodation as long as possible.”

Of course they do! It costs money to do anything, something you single issue, fresh out of university, socialists never realise.