Reforms set out in Fairer Renting White Paper "risk becoming a charter for anti-social behaviour", says private landlords group

The chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) has reiterated his warning to MPs over the potential impact of Government plans to abolish ‘no-fault’ evictions in the private rented sector.

Ben Beadle appeared before the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee earlier this month to submit evidence in the committee’s inquiry into the Fairer Renting White Paper, which sets out plans to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions.

The NRLA is the UK’s largest membership organisation for private residential landlords, with more than 95,000 members.

Mr Beadle said the Government’s plans to reform the private rented sector “risk becoming a charter for anti-social behaviour without urgent changes” and argued that scrapping Section 21 will lead to more possession cases ending up in the courts.

A section 21 no-fault eviction allows landlords to evict a tenant with two months’ notice without having to give any reason.

Under Government plans to end Section 21 repossessions, landlords will be reliant on convictions if they are to have certainty about tackling problem tenants, the association said.

However, the association said that the public has little faith in the ability of the police and councils to tackle anti-social behaviour. The NRLA highlighted data gathered by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change which showed that only 41% of those who reported anti-social behaviour to the police or local authorities in the last year were satisfied with the outcome.  

A survey of almost 3,500 landlords and letting agents by the NRLA found that of those who had served a notice to a tenant due to anti-social behaviour, 84% had received no assistance from their local authority, and 75% said they had received no help from the police.

Without urgent changes to the Government’s planned reforms, the NRLA warned that it would become more difficult to tackle behaviour that blights the lives of neighbours and fellow tenants.

The NRLA called for the implementation in full of the Victims’ Commissioner report on anti-social behaviour. Alongside this, the police and local authorities should be required to check the planned property portal when tackling nightmare tenants and work closely with landlords to take swift action against them.

The courts should also prioritise possession cases brought as a result of such behaviour, it added.

Mr Beadle said: “Anti-social behaviour blights the lives of fellow tenants, neighbours, and communities alike. It is vital that it is tackled swiftly wherever it is found.

“The Government’s proposals simply do not achieve this, and we are calling on new Ministers to look again at the plans. Without change the reforms will become a charter for anti-social behaviour.”

Mr Beadle made the same comments in a written submission submitted to the inquiry last month.

Adam Carey