Croydon has become the first council in the country to call for the abolition of Section 21 and its leeway allowing private landlords to evict tenants without reason.
The full council passed a motion last night (Oct 8) to become the first authority to formally back the End Unfair Evictions campaign: a coalition between Generation Rent, the London Renters Union, ACORN and the New Economics Foundation that is calling the government to abolish ‘no-fault evictions’ in England and introduce the secure, open-ended tenancies now standard in Scotland.
Other councils are expected to follow over the autumn.
Alison Butler, Croydon Council cabinet member for Homes & Gateway Services and Deputy Leader, who proposed the motion, said: “The biggest cause of homelessness in Croydon is evictions in the private rental sector.
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Comment by NetRent Ltd
The article claims that 141,000 so-called revenge evictions have been issued since 2015 and also claims that there 216 per week. These figures are not supported by any evidence and there is no counter balance that gives the number of tenants in arrears or landlords who have seen their properties damaged by malicious tenants. In short, yet again, all the blame is placed on landlords.
The figures themselves simply don’t add up. 216 revenge evictions per week over the same 3 year time period the article claims 141,000 have taken place doesn’t add up to 141,000 – it is actually 33,696. Somewhere along the line 107,304 evictions have been added with no explanation.
Assuming the figure of 216 per week is correct this means that there are 11,232 evictions a year which are so-called revenge evictions. There are some 400 councils in Great Britain so the average council faces 28 evictions per year – one ‘revenge’ eviction per fortnight. Even if this is true this is hardly the rampant problem that has forced Croydon Council to waste their time voting on, let alone Children England, London Age UK and UNISON supporting them.
According to some figures there are some 3.5 million privately rented properties in the UK. If there are 216 ‘revenge evictions’ a year this means that just 0.32% of all tenancies are affected by ‘revenge evictions’. Similar figures indicate that around 15% of all tenancies are in arrears. If that is correct then 525,000 households are currently behind on their rent. Yet Croydon Council, various charities and trade unions seemingly don’t think that the 525,000 landlords affected by this are worthy of their time and effort.
Housing is too important to fall prey to inaccurate reporting, misleading campaigns and statistics which are twisted to suit. It is time that the importance of the private rented sector in the UK is recognised and that landlords and tenants were treated with some respect – and honesty.