More than 11,000 households in England have had their homes repossessed by bailiffs following a no-fault eviction process since last year when the Labour government came into power.
In its manifesto, Labour promised to “immediately abolish” Section 21, also known as no-fault, evictions which allow landlords to remove tenants without a reason.
A bill ending the practice was announced last year and is expected to become law when Parliament returns from its summer break.
Housing charity Shelter said it was “unconscionable” that “renters continue to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs because of an unfair policy that the government said would be scrapped immediately”.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “No one should live in fear of a Section 21 eviction and these new figures show exactly why we will abolish them through our Renters’ Rights Bill.
“We’re determined to level the playing field by providing tenants with greater security, rights and protections in their homes and our landmark reforms will be implemented swiftly after the bill becomes law.”
The Renters’ Rights Bill will introduce a new system giving new tenants a 12-month “protected period” where they cannot be evicted if the landlord wants to move in or sell the property.
Landlords can still get rid of tenants for other reasons including non-payment of rent or criminal behaviour by the tenants.
After the first year, landlords would have to give tenants four months’ notice to leave, doubling the current time period, and provide a specific reason for ending a tenancy.
In September, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook had said he hoped the bill would be passed “within the first half or around summer next year”.
However, when Parliament paused for the summer, the bill had just been passed by the House of Lords, albeit with some changes added.
In September, the House of Commons will debate and vote on the changes. Both houses of Parliament will need to approve the bill before it can become law.
In the latest figures, released by the Ministry of Justice, the number of repossessions by a county court bailiff following a no fault eviction rose from 10,576 between July 2023 and June 2024 to 11,402 the following year.
That represents an increase of 8%, a more modest rise compared to the previous two years which saw jumps of 29% and 60% respectively.
Currently, if a tenant doesn’t leave a property by a specified date, a landlord can make a possession claim to the courts, with an accelerated procedure, which could lead to a repossession.
In the year to June, there were 30,729 claims, a 4% decrease on the previous 12-month period.
Mairi MacRae, Shelter’s director of campaigns and policy, said: “To curb record homelessness and ensure renters can live free from the threat of no-fault eviction, the government must deliver on this commitment, pass the bill, and name an implementation date when Section 21 will finally be scrapped.”
The charity said around 950 households could be evicted for every month a ban is delayed.
The National Residential Landlords Association echoed Shelter’s demands for the government to set a date when the changes would come into force.
It said a “lack of certainty” had “led to a great deal of confusion and concern amongst landlords”.
The association also noted a rise of more than two weeks in the length of the court process for recovering properties over the past year.
A spokesperson added it was “essential that we have clarity about what support will be given to the courts service to ensure it is able to cope with the added pressures which will be created by these reforms”.
Earlier this month, the homelessness minister Rushanara Ali was forced to resign after revelations about how she handled a property she was renting out.
The i newspaper reported that a former tenant of Ali’s had been sent an email in November giving four months’ notice the lease would not be renewed.
She said shortly after she and the three other tenants had moved out, the house in east London had been re-listed at a rent £700 a month higher, in a practice that would be banned under the Renters’ Rights Bill.
The bill would prevent landlords from re-listing a property for rent, if they have ended a tenancy in order to sell, for six months.
