A leading expert on the private rental sector predicts it will take three years for the government to scrap Section 21 evictions powers.
Paul Shamplina – Head of Property for Hamilton Fraser and founder of Landlord Action, and also the star of the Channel 5 show Evicted! Nightmare Tenants – says 2022 will see at last the government’s plans to end S21 powers for agents and landlords.
But it will first appear in a long-promised White Paper and then take substantial consultation and legislation.
“I predict that this will happen in approximately three years. For landlords, removing the option of using a Section 21 to evict a tenant who is in violation of their tenancy, risks the process taking longer and will certainly make it harder to regain possession.
“I hope the Government takes this on board and expands the grounds for possession currently laid out in Section 8.”
Shamplina makes the forecast in a personal contribution to our sister publication Landlord Today.
He continues: “There are also proposals [in the forthcoming White Paper] to improve how landlords can be held to account, through landlord redress and establishing a landlord register.
“Tenants who are renting direct from landlords don’t currently have any come-back when things go wrong. But for me there is an argument that if you have landlord redress, why do you need landlord registration as well? If a mandatory landlord redress scheme was set up, this would provide sufficient recourse for tenants.”
The government has been looking at how to address issues tenants have at the end of tenancies where they must find extra funds to cover a second deposit on their next rental home.
Shamplina adds: “There are proposals to address this gap through a ‘lifetime deposit’ system where a tenant’s deposit would transfer from one landlord to another as they move. The question is, how to bridge the gap if the deposit has been retained to cover damage or rent arrears and the tenant fails to make up the difference?”
