The Bill, which aims to stop the small minority of rogue landlords who, rather than meet their legal duty to keep their properties at a reasonable standard and remove health and safety hazards, instead evict tenants simply for asking for essential repairs to be made, was given backing on the condition that it only targets bad landlords and cannot be used by tenants to frustrate legitimate evictions.
Communities Minister Stephen Williams said Sarah Teather MP’s Bill would help root out a minority of spiteful landlords and ensure that tenants are not afraid to ask for better standards in their homes.
The Bill will extend the existing restrictions on a landlord’s power to evict, where they don’t protect a deposit or have a licence they are required to hold, to situations where a health and safety hazard has been identified by environmental health officers.
Whilst the vast majority of landlords offer a good quality professional service a few rogues shirk their legal responsibilities and use the threat of eviction to silence tenants from rightly speaking out against sub-standard and dangerous accommodation.
Accepting a petition from Shelter on revenge evictions, Stephen Williams said:
“Our private rental sector is a vital asset, providing a home to 9 million people across the country. So I’m determined to root out the minority of rogue landlords that give it a bad name.
That’s why we’re backing Sarah Teather’s Bill to outlaw revenge evictions once and for all - ensuring tenants do not face the prospect of losing their home simply because they’ve asked for essential repairs to be made.”
Landlords have opposed the legislation which they think will make it easier for nightmare tenants to cause problems for their communities and landlords alike.
Explaining its opposition, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) said the unintended consequences of limiting landlords’ right to re-possess a property could lose market confidence and further buy-to-let investment at a time when the private rented sector is the only area of growth in rented homes.
The RLA claims that by supporting this proposal, Ministers are handing nightmare tenants who bring misery to the lives of their neighbours and landlords alike, another weapon to prevent their removal.
RLA chairman, Alan Ward, said: “Revenge evictions should not have any place in a today’s rental market and we would condemn strongly any landlord caught doing it.
However, by backing a measure to tackle the minority of criminal landlords, Ministers will be penalising the vast majority of good landlords by making it ever easier for nightmare tenants to hold up eviction proceedings and continue causing misery for communities.
We need a rational debate. Sadly today’s announcement is once again polarising the sector and giving a false impression that you can be on the side of the landlord or the tenant, but not both.”
The Residential Landlords Association said it is concerned that Stephen Williams MP, in supporting the Bill, has failed to mention the Government’s own statistics that just 9 per cent of tenancies are ended by a landlord largely on the basis of rent not being paid or tenants committing anti-social behaviour.
