By Ben Kerrigan And Gavin Mackintosh
Mps and pressure groups have successfully brought in a new law to protect tenants from revenge evictions.
The new law prevents landlords from ending a tenancy or submitting a section 21 notice after a tenant has complained to the landlord about a matter relating to the rented property. The idea was initially put forward by Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather and housing charity Shelter, in order to advocate a defense against Section 21 possession claims made by landlords. After going in and out of parliament and becoming somewhat of a political football, the amendment to the Deregulation Bill was ‘talked out’ of parliament in December.
A Section 21 Notice currently allows a landlord to regain possession of their property but only at the end of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy or fixed term tenancy agreement.
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Landlords are currently able to issue a Section 21 notice without giving any reason for ending the tenancy agreement and this is where some of the controversy has stemmed from.
The new law prevents landlords will now be unable to issue a section 21 notice if their tenant has previously complained (in writing) about the condition of the rental property and the landlord has failed to deal with the complaint properly and within a specific time period. Th
Agents and landlords in opposition to the changes say that tenants could exploit the new law by making vexatious claims in order to delay the evictions process, translating to lengthy delays in regaining possession or high court costs.
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Richard Price, Executive Director of the UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA), said that landlords and their agents should have the right to possession if needed. He added that UKALA don’t believe that the changes will make a difference to the problems that a minority of tenants sadly experience.
A study of 500 tenants published last year claimed that two thirds have had to dip into their own pockets to fund repairs because they could not wait for the agent or landlord any longer. Over 80 per cent of those surveyed said their landlord or agent is approachable and friendly, and only 12 per cent claimed that their landlord had made promises that they couldn’t keep.Landlords that respond and carry out the desired work will have no detriment on their right to serve a Section 21 notice in the future.
.Local authorities all over the UK will have discretion over whether to issue landlords with a Relevant notice requiring the landlord to carry out the work/improvements on the rental property. Any notices given out by a local authority with respect to an ignored complaint from a tenant will affect the landlord’s right to issue a Section 21 notice.
Tenants will be unable to legally oppose a Section 21 notice without a relevant notice from their local authority beforehand. The new law is an improvement from the old, but has the additional challenge of effectively catering for the wide proportion of illiterates in the Uk, who are simply too uneducated even at primary school level to present a coherent written complaint about a landlord.
Although the standard of education in uk primary schools has been steadily rising in the last two years than it has been in the last two decades, there are still many adults in working class black and white communities who cannot write a simple letter. The vast majority of adults in the Uk can write letters, but many adults may be unaware of this requirement. It will be their duty to find out.
The new higher standard of primary school and secondary school education will see more pupils reading and writing well by the time they enter secondary school thanks to Ofsted’s stringent new measures forcing failing schools to review their standards and raise their quality of teaching and academic standards, and many are responding fast. But the high number of adults in public schools in the last 20 years who left school with low levels of literacy, despite our high level of university graduates. More schools these days are good or outstanding, but there are many adults from weaker academic generations who are still incapable of writing a basic letter, and who cannot also legitimately cite dyslexia as their excuse.
Tenants who cannot write should at least be advised of the need to consciously ask someone who can write to send letters of complaint about offending landlords to their local authority. Without this emphasis, many landlords could still get away with a reckless attitude to complaints from tenants.The new law is as good as live, but may take some time before it is actually put in practice. In the meantime, awareness of the law should be spread to improve the quality of landlord services, who will be kept on their toes if tenants actually complain in writing.
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