Shapps outlines mandatory ground for possession in "neighbours from hell" cases

The Housing Minister is to press ahead with plans for speeding up the eviction process for so-called “neighbours from hell”.

Grant Shapps said a new mandatory power for possession would enable previous convictions for anti-social behaviour to be taken into account.

He also claimed that the “often long and expensive process which requires landlords to prove again the 'yobbish' actions of their nightmare tenants” would be cut short.

According to the Department for Communities and Local Government consultation, trigger offences for the new power of possession are likely to include:

• a conviction for a serious housing-related offence: including violence against neighbours, drug dealing and criminal damage
• breach of an injunction for anti-social behaviour: where the social landlord has obtained, or is party to, the injunction; and
• closure of a premises under a closure order: “for example where a property has been used for drug dealing”.

The DCLG said the courts make an estimated 3,000 eviction orders for anti-social behaviour against social tenants each year.

The Department cited research suggesting it took on average seven months from applying for a possession order to being granted one. It claimed that “it can sometimes take much longer”, with some defendants failing to not turn up or cases being adjourned.

“The costs to landlords, and by extension their tenants, of evicting a 'neighbour from hell' can be well over £20,000 in complex cases,” the DCLG said.

Shapps said: "All too often, efforts to tackle neighbours from hell take far too long, and it seems the needs and right of the victims play second fiddle to those of the perpetrators.

"That's why I'm looking to speed up the process, so where a social housing tenant already has a conviction for anti-social behaviour and the situation has not improved this can be taken into account and landlords can act swiftly to bring an end to the day-to-day misery that is inflicted for too long on those simply seeking to quietly enjoy their homes.”

The minister acknowledged that eviction was “a drastic step” and should be seen as the last resort.

Shapps’ proposals for a mandatory ground for possession have previously been criticised by claimant housing lawyers, however. In January this year the Nearly Legal blog pointed out that where someone has “a finding of ‘housing related’ anti-social behaviour against them in the County Court, Magistrates or Crown Court, it then wouldn’t have to be ‘proved again’ in any other proceedings based on the same incidents”.

It was also pointed out that the ‘mandatory’ nature of the proposals was problematical when recent case law such as Pinnock was taken into account.

Baroness Newlove, the Government's Champion for Active Safer Communities, welcomed the move.

She said: "My postbag is filled with heartbreaking stories of law-abiding families whose lives are made a living hell by the actions of a few uncaring, selfish individuals whose thoughtlessness or ruthless criminal actions blight and intimidate whole neighbourhoods.

"These victims of anti-social behaviour live in abject misery begging in vain for help from one agency or another and sometimes spend years, powerless to do anything about it. If they are owner occupiers they cannot sell their homes and move, such is the trap they are in. This has got to stop. This action will go a long way to redress the balance in their favour.”