Landlords made a ‘veiled threat’ to kick renters out of their homes if the Government decided to bring in a ban on no-fault evictions, a renting campaigner has said.
Tom Darling, the head of the Renter’s Reform Coalition, said landlords warned the new housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, there would be ‘a wave of evictions’ if Labour’s new Renters’ Rights Bill came into effect on a fixed date.
He accused the landlords of threatening to make ‘one last arbitrary eviction just to feel something’ amid the housing crisis facing the UK.
The bill, which was outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner at the Labour Party Conference, would scrap Section 21 orders – which allow landlords to evict their tenants without having to specify a reason – in England.
It is a move that was long-promised by the previous Conservative government, but their Renters (Reform) Bill was abandoned when the July 4 election was called.
The Renter’s Reform Coalition is urging the ban to brought in as soon as possible to protect tenants in an already unstable housing market.
Speaking about the interactions he had previously had with landlords during a fringe event at the Labour party conference, Mr Darling said: ‘I was at a roundtable with the Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook and representative groups from renter organisations as well as landlord organisations.
‘I won’t mention their name, but one of the representatives from the landlord organisations made a veiled threat to the minister that having a firm end date to Section 21 you would see a wave of evictions before that date.
‘And I thought that’s an absolutely remarkable thing to say, and actually shows why Section 21 needs to be abolished in and off itself.
‘The idea that landlords can have that power and to issue that threat, albeit veiled, shows in itself what a ridiculous situation it is.’
He added: ‘You do see landlords saying this on social media and on forums, you see them say, “Well, I’m going to do one last eviction before Section 21 is abolished.”
‘Slightly psychotic – one last arbitrary eviction just to feel something.’
The fringe event, organised by the Renter’s Reform Coalition, took place hours after Housing Secretary Ms Rayner promised to ‘rebalance’ the relationship between tenants and landlords in a speech.
She told the conference: ‘Our long-term plan will free leaseholders from the tyranny of a medieval system.
‘And a cross-governmental taskforce will put Britain back on track to ending homelessness.
‘Whether you’re a leaseholder, a tenant, a home-buyer or without somewhere to live – this government is on your side.’
Earlier in the Coalition event – which was attended by new Labour MP Rachel Blake – Darling and Anny Cullum from housing campaign group ACORN had urged the government to take action on landlords who hike rents to force their tenants out.
Cullum spoke about a woman in Haringey, north London, who ‘had sewage roaming into her back garden’.
When she contacted her landlord, they ‘put her rent up to try and force her out’.
The campaigner said: ‘If Labour don’t do something more to stop landlords being able to put the rent up to a silly level, we want to see rents capped within a tenancy by the medium of what wages have gone up to in the last three years or to inflation.’
Darling said excessive rent hikes ‘have the effect of being a no-fault eviction’.
The Renters’ Rights Bill was introduced to parliament on September 11, and is due to be debated by MPs later in the autumn.
What’s wrong with the rental market currently?
The Renters’ Rights Bill aims to give tenants more security over their homes, dealing with some of the deep issues with the rental market.
So what are those problems and what will it address?
The biggest reform relates to Section 21 notices, also known as no-fault evictions, which allow a landlord to ask their tenant to leave their property without having to specify a reason.
Renters can be given just two months notice to find somewhere else to live and move out or face legal action: not an easy task in today’s housing market.
There are concerns that the situation gives landlords the opportunity to kick out tenants who complain about their living standards – a practice called retaliatory evictions.
According to housing charity Shelter, around 500 private renters are served a Section 21 notice every day, and more than 26,000 households faced homelessness in the past five years due to no-fault evictions.
Many people currently find it very difficult to find a rental property accepting pets.
Landlords afraid that dogs or cats could damage furnishings may say outright that pets are not permitted.
Labour wants to strengthen rights of tenants to have a pet, such as a cat or dog, so that the landlord must consider the request and cannot unreasonably refuse.
Average private rents are at the highest rates on record, with rental inflation at 5.4% currently.
Despite still meaning big increases for tenants, it’s the lowest level in three years: this time last year was 10.2%.
It means that tenants are paying much more proportionally to rent than they were a decade ago, a situation which hasn’t been helped by ‘bidding wars’ for flats where prospective tenants offer over the asking price.
Many tenants currently feel unable to bring up problems with their homes, such as mould, for fear of being seen as an inconvenience by their landlord who may seek to evict them.
The English Housing Survey found that in 2022, 21% of private rented homes failed to meet the Decent Homes Standard, which includes having reasonably modern facilities and being in a good state of repair.
Two-year-old Awaab Ishak’s death due to prolonged exposure to mould in his social rented home led to the introduction of ‘Awaab’s Law’ for conditions in social housing, but this is not yet applicable to privately rented homes.
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