Landlords are moving fast to evict tenants as the government’s ban on Section 21 evictions looms, campaigners have warned.

Housing charities want the passage of the Renters’ Rights Bill to be sped up, with more than 100,000 households now having been evicted under Section 21 since Theresa May promised to ban it in April 2019.

The Renters Reform Coalition, which brings together 21 organisations supporting private renters, says such orders could be used thousands of times during the wait for the bill to become law.

The group warned that based on current trends, more than 15,600 rental households will be evicted by bailiffs in the first six months of 2025. A figure that represents a 12.2% increase on the first half of last year.

The legislation returned to the House of Commons this week for its remaining stages, having passed through its first and second reading and scrutiny from a parliamentary committee last year. It will then head to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

Lucy Tiller, policy manager for the RRC, said the legislation is unlikely to come into force until summer.

“Some of the increase is because there was a massive downturn during the pandemic and we just still on the increase from that, but it is definitely the case that there are a huge number of Section 21 evictions going through at the moment”, she told the press. “We think, since the last government pledged in 2019 to ban Section 21s, over 100,000 households have been threatened with homelessness and 1,000,000 have received Section 21 evictions, so these are huge numbers.”

An amendment to the proposed legislation would stop landlords demanding more than a month’s rent in advance from a new tenant, with housing charity Shelter dubbing it a “discriminatory practice”.

But Polly Neate, the charity’s chief executive called on the government to go further. She said: “With benefit recipients nearly twice as likely to be blocked from renting by demands for rent up front, the Government is absolutely right to use the Renters’ Rights Bill to reign this discriminatory practice in.

“But paying to get a foot in the door isn’t the only cost renters contend with. We regularly hear from tenants who are forced to up sticks and move when their landlord hikes the rent to ridiculous levels – last year 900 renters a day moved because of a rent hike they couldn’t afford.

“To truly make renting more secure and affordable, the Bill must limit in-tenancy rent increases in line with either inflation or wage growth. It must also stamp out the other discriminatory practices, like unnecessary demands for guarantors, that drive homelessness by locking people out of private renting.”

A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Our Renters’ Rights Bill will deliver on our promise to transform the private rented sector, so that people can put down roots and save for the future without fear of being evicted on a whim – including plans to end ‘no fault’ evictions for all existing and new tenants at the same time.

“Through our Plan for Change, we will tackle the wider housing crisis we inherited head on, building the homes we need, delivering the biggest boost in social and affordable housing in a generation.”