Landlord and tenant: speeding up the eviction process

Recently, there has been a lot of publicity surrounding retaliatory eviction, where landlords choose to evict a tenant complaining of disrepair to a property, via a section 21 notice, rather than carry out the necessary work. Government ministers have even given their backing in principle to a private member’s bill to outlaw so-called ‘revenge evictions’.

Naturally, applying pressure to rid the market of rogue landlords who exploit tenants by not carrying out their care of duty is imperative.

Behaving badly

However, what about those who do fulfil their role as a landlord, but whose tenants do not reciprocate, instead refusing to pay the rent owed, behaving badly or mistreating the property?

These landlords are forced to continue housing a tenant during a long-winded and often costly eviction process. A landlord in this situation still has to pay his/her mortgage and other outgoing bills on the property and, the longer the eviction process takes, the greater the rent arrears that mount up. Landlords with mortgages are losing properties and decent tenants are being prevented from renting.

Many landlords depend on their rent for income, such as pensioners who have rental properties instead of a traditional pension. Something must be done so that the actions of a small minority are not detrimental to good landlords and tenants who provide a valuable service to one another.

But, what is the answer? The government has created a thinktank incorporating industry professionals, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA), the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), Property Federation and the Property Ombudsman, to see how and what improvements could be made to the current eviction service as well as look at creating ’model’ tenancy agreements.

As part of this, we have pilot tested a new online form, which the courts are looking into the possibility of using in the future to assist landlords in issuing section 21 claims by simplifying the process.

Encouraging landlords to make use of the possession claims online service (PCOL) is a simple, convenient and secure way of making or responding to certain types of possession claims and will help landlords obtain hearing dates much quicker by eradicating the need to send hard copies of the paperwork to the court.

There has also been talk about having specific landlord and tenant tribunal courts, but the government simply does not have the resources to implement this at the moment. First, we need to tackle the problem of cutbacks at existing courts. One of the big problems being piled on to the court system is the lack of houses being built and councils advising tenants to stay in properties, so that landlords are forced to evict and obtain a possession order before the tenant can be rehoused.

Speedier process

Other recommendations we have made include greater information on how to seek possession, more support by way of mediation to avoid the eviction process altogether, the opportunity to
carry out accelerated possessions online, and a possible checking service via the courts, which would help speed up the process rather than having to wait two months for a case to be thrown out and started over again.

The benefits of a speedier eviction service are endless. Reuniting landlords with their properties in a timelier manner will help minimise the losses incurred by many landlords and other suppliers as a result of non-payment of rent. It could also give more landlords the confidence to enter the market.

In addition, with more and more people choosing to rent as a lifestyle rather than a necessity, spending on average 132 days a year of their wages on rent, the government is calling for landlords to offer longer fixed-term tenancies called ‘model tenancies’.

With the current eviction system, landlords and lending organisations are reluctant to sign an agreement any longer than 12 months when it can take over six months or more to evict a tenant in rent arrears or for bad behaviour (the only grounds available under section 8 during a fixed term).

If the eviction process was faster in clear cases
of bad practice, while still allowing tenants with genuine defences to put their claim before the court, more landlords would be attracted to longer tenancies, which provide a stable income with
no voids. There would be less pressure on courts, which are already over stretched, and landlords would be more willing to support local authorities by providing extra housing. SJ

Paul Shamplina is the co-founder of Landlord Action ?