A property company accused of trying to mass-evict tenants in the weeks before no-fault evictions are banned has denied doing so, saying it is simply implementing “routine and lawful tenancy management”.
A statement from Criterion Capital, set up by the billionaire property magnate Asif Aziz, was issued in response to Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, who wrote to the company to seek “urgent” answers about its plans.
Criterion has reportedly sent section 21 notices, which give notice of proposed eviction, to large numbers of its tenants. At prime minister’s questions this month, the Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh said she knew of at least 130 such notices issued by Criterion at just one development, Britannia Point, in her south London constituency of Mitcham and Morden.
In a letter to the directors of Criterion, seen by the Guardian, Pennycook said that if the company was seeking to remove tenants before the Renters’ Rights Act comes into force on 1 May, banning so-called no-fault evictions in England, it would be the actions of a “thoroughly unscrupulous landlord”.
But in statements to the Guardian, Criterion said it was the victim of “inaccurate and politicised narratives”. The company said it had issued 87 section 21 notices across its property portfolio, amounting to fewer than 5% of its total tenants.
Criterion said it was wrong to present this as mass evictions, but was instead “routine and lawful tenancy management”. While section 21 notices are usually used as notice of eviction, the company said that because the actual eviction had to be enforced by a subsequent court order, serving the notices did not amount to eviction.
More than a third of households who were sent section 21 notices had moved, Criterion said, adding: “These were tenant-led decisions and we have supported them – they were not evictions.”
It said: “Where tenants have expressed a wish to remain, we are actively engaging and agreeing renewed tenancy terms. The service of notice does not preclude continued occupation.”
Asked whether tenants wishing to stay were being asked to pay increased rent or change their tenancies in other ways, Criterion said new tenancy terms did not necessarily mean this. Those who agreed new terms would be allowed to stay, it added.
In his letter to Criterion, Pennycook said there would be “public concern and outrage at the notion that less than six weeks before private renters across the country benefit from new rights and protections, a large number of tenants may be at risk of a mass no-fault eviction in order that their homes can be re-let for the purposes of temporary accommodation”.
He added: “I would hope you would also agree that such behaviour, were it to be taking place, would be that of a thoroughly unscrupulous landlord of the kind that the act in question is designed to bear down on.”
Pennycook asked Criterion to set out what sort of notices were issued, how many and why, saying the government wanted “a transparent account of precisely what action your company has taken in respect of periodic tenancies at Britannia Point and other buildings in south London”.
He added: “I look forward to your response as a matter of the utmost urgency.”
In their statement, Criterion accused politicians of “presenting demonstrably untrue claims causing unnecessary alarm to tenants for political visibility”.
It added: “Tenants in private market-rent accommodation should not be used as cannon-fodder for political campaigning. The repeated use of the term ‘mass eviction’ is inaccurate and irresponsible.”
A series of publications, including the London Centric website, which broke the story about Criterion’s plans, have spoken to a number of tenants who said they were surprised and alarmed to receive what they understood to be eviction notices.
According to the BBC, a local councillor has taken up the cases of more than 100 Criterion tenants in Britannia Point alone.
