Almost half of tenants who have complained about their landlord have faced “revenge evictions”, Citizens Advice claims.
The public support organisation surveyed 2,001 private renters in England during March and found that tenants who had received a Section 21 notice were twice as likely to have complained to their landlord – and eight times more likely to have complained to a redress scheme.
It found that tenants who have made a complaint had a 46% chance of being issued with a Section 21 notice.
A separate poll among council environmental health officers by Citizens Advice found that three in every four saw tenants receive a no-fault eviction after complaining last year.
This is despite the 2015 Deregulation Act banning so-called revenge evictions.
The findings have prompted Citizens Advice to back Government proposals for three-year tenancies – a consultation for which closed on Sunday – but to also use them to restrict the use of Section 21 notices.
A report from Citizens Advice warned that a proposed six-month “get to know you” period that would let both parties exit an agreement risked “legitimising retaliatory evictions” and stopping tenants from complaining early in the tenancy.
Instead, the report calls for “legitimate reasons for dissatisfaction” such as rent arrears or anti-social behaviour to be covered by specific grounds for eviction, adding: “This break clause could discourage tenants from making complaints in the first six-month period.
“Building in ambiguity like this undermines the government’s intention to give all tenants greater stability. Under this model, there is potential for landlords to begin invoking the six-month break clause as standard, actually reducing the level of security that many tenants currently have.”
Citizens Advice also called for a limit to how much rent can be increased by each year and for landlords to have to provide three months’ notice for a tenant to leave, while a renter should only have to provide one month.
Tenants should also have a right to leave properties deemed unsafe due to serious health and safety hazards at short notice, Citizens Advice said.
The report also calls for a review of the grounds for a Section 8 notice, adding: “To ensure longer tenancies work for both tenants and landlords, there need to be efficient processes in place for cases where the landlord legitimately needs to recover their property.
“For this reason, we support the proposed addition of sale of property as grounds for eviction, providing there are protections in place to prevent its abuse. Evidence of a genuine sale of the property is vital and the proposed requirement, a letter from an agent, is open to abuse. Landlords can already sell their property with the tenant in situ, which should be encouraged to minimise disruption to the tenant.”
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “The chance of a family being evicted from their home for complaining about a problem shouldn’t carry the same odds as the toss of a coin.
“Those living in substandard properties must have greater protection against eviction when they complain.
“Our report shows that well-intentioned laws created to put an end to revenge evictions have not worked, and a new fix is needed.
“There are serious question marks over the existence of a power that allows landlords to unilaterally evict tenants without reason – known as section 21.
“While Government plans for minimum three-year tenancies is a step in the right direction, these changes must be strong enough to genuinely prevent revenge evictions once and for all.”
However, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) rejected claims that landlords were conducting revenge evictions and said the main issue was Section 8 not working when a tenant was committing anti-social behaviour or failing to pay rent, leaving many with no choice but to issue a Section 21 notice.
The RLA said only 11% of tenancies are ended by the landlord and, of these, almost two thirds regained their property because they wanted to sell it or use it.
David Smith, policy director of the RLA, said a Housing Court was instead required to settle disputes between landlords and tenants more quickly.
He said: “No good landlord will want to evict a tenant unless there is a major issue around rent arrears or anti-social behaviour. That’s why the average length of a tenancy is now four years.
“But where things do go wrong, landlords need to have confidence that they can regain their property. This is why we believe a new process, a dedicated Housing Court, needs to be established to speed things up and why there needs to be a six-month break clause in the proposed three-year tenancy.”
Section 21 is a life saver for landlords. At the end of the day it is the landlord that pays the mortgage and carries ALL the financial risk. S8 is far too easily abused by tenants who don’t pay rent for spurious reasons. Pay a small amount just before the court date and lie to the judge and bingo another six months rent free. Yes believe it or not some tenants do actually lie and don’t pay their rent!
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Maybe it’s a blinkered view, but I find it very odd that the government seem to think that a property owner shouldn’t have the right to legally evict a tenant. It”s their asset which they have paid for/are paying for and as such all the risk sits with them; why shouldn’t they have the final say in who they choose to take that risk on?
I do understand that it creates uncertainty for the tenants, but surely the tenant has to understand and accept that the uncertainty is part and parcel of private rental, and if they respect the property, pay the rent and conduct their affairs with honesty and decency then the landlord will only serve a S21 if there is a genuine need to, i.e. for sale.
Hamstringing landlords and removing their rights to control their own property affairs is simply going to add to the droves of property owners leaving the private rental sector due to the balance of power being skewed towards the tenant but impacting on the owner.
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Have they ever tried to sell a house with a Tenant in it, especially one that may not want to move? Suddenly they are working all the time, or out and viewings are inconvenient. They always seem to have been too busy to tidy up and if you give them half a chance they will be going on about every little creak and crack in the house and the problems with the neighbours.
Not all of them, admittedly, but enough that I have had to warn buyers before they go round. One even arranged the viewing a week in advance, then had a meal on the table and sat to eat it when we arrived! Who the heck eats a full meal at 3pm??
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Another charity banging their drums!
A charity that in 2017 received £93,000,000 in gov grants, where 6 executives were paid in excess of £100,000 PA plus healthy pension contributions, where according to their own figures housing issues do not fall within the top 5 categories that they deal with, in fact only 7.5% of the total of 5.35 million complaints ! A charity that despite £93,000,000 plus other monies from industry managed to make a loss.
Time that all these “charities” were stripped of status and stood up and admitted that they are just nowadays organisations that lobby gov for change whilst happily accepting funding from said gov?
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The thing is, I agree with two points they raised.
The amount that rent goes up each year should be limited. I’m not sure how, I think at the moment it is not more than once a year and not by more than 10%. Sounds fair enough to me.
And Tenants who call to complain about a leaky tap should not be served notice, as long as they are good Tenants. If however the rent is always late, there are messages, email and letters from neighbours complaining and the property is not being well cared for, then the Tenant should not be able to use the leaky tap as a reason not to be served notice.
I’ll repeat what I am sure many agents and Landlords have said; If a Tenant is good, I will do what I can to help them. If you are a pain in the bum then don’t expect me to bend over backwards to sort out your pathetic ‘issues’ when you can’t even clean the windows or set up a standing order.
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