The number of people being evicted from private rented property through no fault of their own in the Bristol area has more than doubled since before the covid pandemic, new figures have revealed.
And the controversial ‘no fault evictions’, which leave people with just two months to find somewhere else to live, are now happening at the rate of one every day in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.
The spike in Section 21 eviction orders have led to renewed calls from housing charity Shelter for the practice to be stopped and the Government to make good on its promise to end ‘no fault evictions’ as part of new legislation.
Read more: Bristol's 'unfair' private renting market 'is breaking up communities'
Section 21 of the Housing Act gives landlords the ability to evict their tenants without reason or cause, as long as they give them two months notice. The evictions have been increasingly happening as rents spiral, with letting agents in Bristol even writing to landlords advising them that they could hike rents by hundreds of pounds a month and still be able to find another tenant.
The figures, which have been released by the Government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, show a massive jump in the number of people and households getting evicted by their landlords - and also show just how much worse the issue is in Bristol than in other parts of the country. The three months of October, November and December in 2019 were the last full quarter before the covid pandemic hit in early 2020, and that saw no-fault evictions temporarily banned as part of covid lockdown rules.
In those three months in late 2019, there were a total of 57 ‘Section 21, no fault’ evictions across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset. In October, November and December of 2021, that had more than doubled to 129, or more than one every day for the 92 days between October 1 and December 31 last year.
The ‘no fault’ evictions are only the tip of the iceberg for people in private rented accommodation losing their homes at short notice - the figures reveal that in total, 663 households lost their homes in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire in the last three months of 2021 - that’s more than seven every day or 50 a week.
The vast majority of those - some 558 - were in Bristol, where things are so bad that Shelter, local tenants union Acorn and other campaigners came together to form a Bristol Fair Rents Campaign, backed by Bristol Live.
Across the country, ‘no-fault’ evictions are on the up - increasing by 37 per cent between 2019 and 2021. That means the number of evictions is increasing more than three times faster in Bristol than across the rest of England.
Now, homelessness charity Shelter is calling for the Government to make good on its promise to ban no-fault evictions by committing to a Renters’ Reform Bill in the Queen’s Speech.
It was back in May 2019 that the then housing minister James Brokenshire revealed he had decided that Section 21 'no fault' evictions should end, after meeting people living in a newly-opened homeless shelter in St Annes, in Bristol. Mr Brokenshire tragically died last October, around the time the Queen announced in Parliament that her Government would introduce new legislation which outlawed the practice. But Shelter have now pointed out that hasn't happened yet, with little sign of the Government fulfilling its promises.
The charity fears the cost-of-living crisis means many renters will be unable to cover the unexpected costs of finding a new home, like putting down a deposit or paying rent in advance.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “These are real people who’ve been chewed up and spat out by our broken private renting system, and now face an uphill battle to find somewhere to call home again.
“Our emergency helpline is inundated with calls from people whose lives have been thrown into chaos by unexpected and unfair evictions. If landlords follow the process, as it stands they can turf people out of their homes for no reason - and tenants are powerless to do anything about it.
“No-fault evictions are blunt, brutal, and indiscriminate. England’s 11 million private renters have waited long enough for a fairer system - it's time the government brought forward a Renters’ Reform Bill and put Section 21 on the scrapheap where it belongs.”
A separate poll carried out by YouGov with Shelter suggests that nearly 230,000 private renters have been served with formal no-fault eviction notices. That equates to one renter every seven minutes.
In total, government data shows 33,800 households became homeless in England last winter. That includes 8,410 families with children - a rise of 18% in a year and puts family homelessness back at pre-pandemic levels.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said: “These figures show the action we’re taking to tackle homelessness is already having an impact - the Homelessness Reduction Act has prevented over 475,000 households from becoming homeless or supported them to settled accommodation since 2018 and we’re building on that success with £316 million funding this year.
“The government is providing a £22 billion package to help households with rising costs and we will bring forward reforms to support renters, including ending Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions.”
Anyone who is facing homelessness can get free and expert advice from Shelter by visiting www.shelter.org.uk/get_help.
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