Landlords forego unpaid rent to evict tenants sooner

The number of landlords choosing to forfeit recouping unpaid rent in order to speed up evictions has risen by 11 per cent.

Thomson Reuters research found the that the number of accelerated procedure notices jumped from 26,929 in 2014/14 to 29,821 in 2014/15.

Barrister Daniel Dovar who specialises in property and practises from Tanfield, said that with demand for rental property outweighing supply and forcing rents upward, the opportunity cost to a landlord of having a property occupied by someone that can't pay the rent has increased, which makes emptying a loss making property quickly a bigger priority.

'Private landlords are also under increasing pressure to meet their mortgage payments on buy-to-let investments', he said. 'They simply don't have the time to go through the potentially lengthy process of recovering unpaid rent.'

Property repossessions

In addition, the number of landlords using County Court bailiffs to repossess their property has jumped to a record high, from 37,706 in 2013/14 to 41,489 in 2014/15.

Dovar said rising rents on residential property had stretched the finances of an increasing number of tenants to breaking point.

'This trend is likely to be particularly pronounced in the capital, where London's residential property market has pushed rental costs to record highs,' he said.

Esther Nimmo is an editorial assistant at Solicitors Journal

esther.nimmo@solicitorsjournal.co.uk @EstherNimmo