There were two recent events of importance to the private rental sector. These were, first, the announcement on how the Government will take forward the various limitations on termination of tenancies and evictions which were introduced as a result of Covid-19 and were to expire at the end of May. Second was the Queen’s Speech, which included a component setting out some of the Government’s thinking on the future of the sector.
In relation to tenancy termination, the current ban on evicting tenants will come to an end at the end of May and will not be renewed. This means that any landlord with an existing court order for possession will be able to have it enforced and there will be little restriction on commencing new claims other than those caused by the huge amount of business that the court is trying to deal with. The court is still operating a different work model for possession cases and this is intended to run in its current form until the end of July. It is likely to be extended beyond that and run into the autumn. These procedures, however, are largely intended to use court time effectively and prioritise resources to specific case types, and that is likely to be more embedded into the processes going forward.
“If there are rent arrears which exceed the equivalent of four months’ rent at the time the notice is served, then the notice period will drop to four weeks”
Also, from 1 June, there will be new notice periods for the standard notices for terminating tenancies which lasts until the end of September. In summary, most notices will now only require four months’ notice instead of six months. For rent arrears the notice period is reduced even further to two months. However, if there are rent arrears which exceed the equivalent of four months’ rent at the time the notice is served, then the notice period will drop to four weeks, so the position on rent arrears is now hardening rapidly.
The Queen’s Speech also saw proposed changes. The Government seems to be backing away from its previous commitment to get rid of s21, no fault evictions. Instead, it is now proposing a white paper in the autumn on a range of topics around standards and enforcement, with legislation to follow in due course. The Speech also contained a new mention of exploring “the merits of a landlord register”. England is rather behind the other parts of the UK in this issue, as they all have landlord registration of one sort or another, but previously this is something that has not been of much interest to central government. It may be that the Government now sees a landlord registration scheme as a mechanism to communicate with a group it finds difficult to get information over to.
Taken together, this shows us moving through a phased process towards the end of lockdown restrictions on the sector. As we head into the autumn, the Government will lay out its new plans and it seems to be looking more at new forms of regulation of the sector rather than radical alteration of the underlying tenancy relationship.
