The renters Reform Bill which reaches its final stages in the House of Commons today has been termed a failure as it appears that plans to stop tenants being evicted from their homes under Section 21 notices will be delayed
The Renters Reform Coalition says the bill has been watered down again and again by the government, with several rounds of damaging concessions to backbench MPs that have fundamentally weakened it.
“The amendments tabled recently by the government are just the final straw.”
They say that the result of all the government’s backtracking is that we have now have a bill that abolishes section 21 in name only – there is no guarantee it would ever fully abolish section 21, and even then the new tenancy system set to replace it will be little better.
“This legislation is intended to give the impression of improving conditions for renters, but in fact it preserves the central power imbalance at the root of why renting in England is in crisis.”
The coalition says the legislation should give tenants 4 months’ notice when they are evicted, rather than 2 months’ notice proposed at present (and which is the same as the status quo for section 21 evictions).
It should renters from eviction under the new landlord circumstances grounds for the first two years of a tenancy, rather than the 6 months proposed which offers no improvement on the status quo.
They want strong safeguards to prevent unscrupulous landlords abusing the new grounds for eviction, which risk being used in essentially the same way as section 21 notices and to give courts maximum discretion to identify if there are good reasons why an eviction should not take place.
In tenancy rent increases should be limited at the lowest of either inflation or wage growth, to prevent unaffordable rent increases being no-fault ‘economic’ evictions.
