Almost all tenants ‘unaware of new revenge eviction laws’

Revenge evictions have attracted considerable media interest in recent months and it will certainly be intriguing to see what sort of impact this new law has.

A poll carried out by the National Landlords Association (NLA) has revealed 88 per cent of tenants did not know the law was set to be introduced.

Meanwhile, a survey by landlords suggests many tenants are yet to become fully aware of their new protections.

Landlords face new obligations and the rules around eviction notices have changed under the 2015 Deregulation Act. A section 21 notice can no longer be served in the first four months of a tenancy and a section 21 notice will now have a six month life span.

They are also unable to serve notice if the tenant does not have an energy performance certificate, or the property is in substandard condition, in a move to curb “revenge evictions”.

Once an eviction notice is served, tenants are entitled to a refund on rent for any month in which the property has been empty, whether or not this is before the termination date.

Despite recognising that the changes are in response to the ever growing private rental sector and a need for best practice, Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action has expressed several concerns over the changes.

The vast majority of landlords look after their properties and arrange repairs when problems arise, but a small percentage of rogue landlords use section 21 to evict tenants in retaliation for them asking their landlord to bring the property up to scratch.

“Landlords” circumstances can change and if they need to end their tenancy, but can’t because they are waiting for an inspection or to gain access from the tenant, landlords are going to lose valuable time, ‘ he pointed out.

‘We still receive calls to our advice line on a weekly basis from landlords who don’t know about the deposit scheme which came into effect eight years ago, ‘ he pointed out.

The new regulations will apply to new tenancies from 1 October, 2015, and then to all tenancies from October 1, 2018.

“These kinds of evictions are extremely rare but we have to make sure that complaints by tenants don’t just get lost in the system, regardless of whether they’re legitimate or not”.

“The majority of landlords only choose to end a tenancy if it’s absolutely necessary, so we have to make sure that the system isn’t abused by those simply trying to prolong the evictions process”.

A third of landlords said they feel the law sides with tenants because of “extortionate upkeep costs, cuts to tax breaks and nearly half of tenants not paying their rent arrears, even after court proceedings”.