The government promised to ban no-fault evictions in its 2019 election manifesto and a renters reform bill was included in the December 2019 Queen’s speech, but it never materialised, until this week.
In the meantime thousands of households have been evicted after being served a section 21 notice, which the new renters reform bill finally proposes to ban.
Among them is Chiara Daughtry, 33, a teacher in Walthamstow, London, who was issued with a no-fault eviction notice in January after complaining about long-term damp problems and refusing a 24% rent rise at the two bedroom flat she shares with her husband, Ben, and their three-year-old daughter, Maggie.
Despite paying £1,250 a month, the flat was plagued by rotten wooden sash windows letting water in, damp coming from a waterlogged cellar below and water coming in through air bricks.
Council inspectors came to see the problems on several occasions, but nothing was fixed and on Christmas Eve, the letting agent said the landlord wanted to increase the rent to £1,550.
Daughtry wrote saying “we won’t be paying any increase until you address the issues” and the next communication the family received from the landlord was a section 21 notice, she said.
“It was really distressing and really upsetting,” she added. “You have no security as a renter here. We are a family. We don’t want to move every year or two years. It felt very unfair as a teacher working hard. And there are zero consequences for the letting agent or the landlord.”
She said she feared that removing no-fault evictions would not end the problem and that landlords would be able to manipulate other grounds for evictions in the absence of more resources for council housing officials to carry out checks. She also said continuing short-term tenancies means landlords could use renewal dates to force people out.
“I am not hopeful things will improve immediately,” she said. “They need to put money into the councils for us to see a change.”
David Martin, 34, a sales manager, and his partner, Samira, 30, live in Rishi Sunak’s constituency of Richmond, North Yorkshire. In January 2021 the couple moved into a £625-a-month two-bedroom privately rented terrace house, but just 24 hours later they were horrified to see damp appearing.
That was the start of a two-year battle with mould which spread throughout the house. Martin complained repeatedly, and in November 2022, when Samira was five months pregnant, the landlord served a section 21 eviction notice. Since then, Martin has written to Sunak and complained to local environmental health officials who issued an improvement notice on the property. Now the couple has found a new property – a two-bedroom bungalow in the town.
“The whole process of not having somewhere secure for the baby has been really stressful,” he said. “Practically, financially and emotionally, it’s had a massive impact. I think there’s quite a lot of things wrong with the rental market. It seems that a landlord can get away with not fixing things in the property, not upholding their end of the contract, but as soon as a renter doesn’t pay their rent, they’re worse than mud. I think something like a register for landlords would make sense, because if we have to have all these background checks on us, why don’t the landlords have to have the same thing?”
He said a ban on section 21 evictions will “give renters more security and balance of power”.
“At the moment in the rental market landlords cannot fix things, but as soon as you don’t have your rent, boom, you’re in trouble,” he said. “I was having to pay rent for a property that was not fit for human habitation.”
He added that the current situation was “not good for the economy” citing the risk that stress for renters can cause illness, time off work and taxes not being paid.
The executive assistant Jazmyn Sadri, 28, has been evicted from studio flats in London three times in five yearsafter landlords increased the rent by an unaffordable amount. On two of these occasions, the landlord issued invalid no-fault eviction notices, and two of the homes did not have reliable heating.
“The bill is meaningless,” she said. “In my experience, section 21 isn’t how landlords are evicting people. They are raising the rent to an amount you can’t afford, which happened to me almost every time. The impact of the legislation could be negligible to me. There needs to be a limit on how much you can raise the rent.
“I got evicted and then I would see my home on Rightmove for £200 to £300 a month more.” The same kind of studio flat she was paying £1,000 a month for now rents for £1,500, she said.
“You can’t plan far ahead,” she said. “You don’t know where you are going to be based in six months. And it’s expensive to move – I am in debt and it’s moving costs.”
• This article was amended on 18 May 2023 to clarify some personal information.
