Worried about being evicted because of coronavirus?

Last updated 12th August.

If you’re a tenant and you’ve struggled to keep up to date with the rent during lockdown, you might be worried about whether your landlord might evict you.

As you probably know, evictions have been banned by the government since the start of lockdown. In Scotland, the eviction ban has been extended until April 2021; but in England and Wales it runs out on the 23rd of August.

What will happen after the ban expires?

Temporary changes to repossession proceedings – this time lasting until March 2021, although they could be extended after then – mean that:

• To repossess a property, a landlord will be required to include any relevant information about how the tenant’s circumstances have been affected by coronavirus in their claim. Judges will be able to suspend the proceedings if this information is not provided.
• Landlords who started a court claim for possession before the pandemic will have to notify the court that the issues have still not been resolved and they wish to continue with the repossession – which seems to mean that these claims won’t restart automatically.
• The period between a landlord issuing a court claim and the date of the court hearing could be longer. Previously, the hearing had to happen within eight weeks, but courts will now have greater flexibility.

All of this means it will be harder than before for landlords to evict tenants, even after the eviction ban runs out. However, the requirement to provide information about the tenant’s circumstances won’t apply in certain cases, including if the tenant is in ‘extreme rent arrears’.

So what qualifies as ‘extreme’?

The government hasn’t clarified this yet. But in normal circumstances, eight weeks of rent arrears are grounds for eviction. This is a worry for the estimated 590,000 people in Britain who are behind on their rent due to the pandemic.

Housing charities have been campaigning for the government to do more across the UK to ensure renters cannot be evicted for missed payments caused by the pandemic.

In Wales, for example, the Welsh government have made a temporary change to legislation meaning that the notice a landlord has to give a tenant to repossess a property using Section 8 and Section 21 of the Housing Act – the most common kinds of eviction – has increased from three months to six months.

The UK government have said they are ‘working to provide appropriate support’ to renters who have been affected. When we have more information about what that support will look like, we’ll post it here.

In the meantime…

If you rent your home, that’s your highest priority bill. Whatever your income, your debt solution payment should leave you with enough money each month to keep up with your rent payments.

If you’ve struggled over the past few months and have got into rent arrears, please do get in touch to let us know as soon as possible. Whatever happens over the next couple of months, we’ll do everything we can to make sure you can get back up to date with your rent.

 

We’re posting regular updates for customers on our website so please keep checking for more information. We’ll also be updating our Facebook page regularly, so please follow us there too. We are also on Twitter.