Gove pledges to ban No-fault evictions before the General Election

The Housing Secretary Michael Gove says the Government will ban No-fault evictions before the next General Election, which must take place within the next 10 months.

Laura Murphy, Paralegal in our Dispute Resolution team provides an update.

The Government first pledged to outlaw the process when it came to power in 2019. The Renters (Reform) Bill, which includes a ban on no-fault evictions, was introduced in Parliament last October, but is still being debated.

However, last November Mr Gove said the proposed ban was being postponed indefinitely until the court system is improved.

Now the issue has been resurrected. Speaking on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Gove said: “We will have outlawed it, and we will have put the money into the courts in order to ensure that they can enforce that.”

He stressed that it was important to deal with abuse of no-fault evictions. He said: “It is the case that there are a small minority of unscrupulous landlords who use the threat of eviction either to jack up rents or to silence people who are complaining about the quality of their homes.”

Gove didn’t provide any further details about how the new system would work.

However, the government’s original proposals included:   

• outlawing blanket bans on renting to families with children or those in receipt of benefits
• ending the use of arbitrary rent review clauses, restricting tribunals from hiking up rent and enabling tenants to take their landlord to court to seek repayment of rent if their homes are of an unacceptable standard
• making it easier for tenants to have pets in their homes by giving all tenants the right to request a pet in their house, which the landlord must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse
• all tenants to be moved on to a single system of periodic tenancies, meaning they can leave poor quality housing without remaining liable for the rent or move more easily when their circumstances change
• a tenancy will only end if a tenant ends it or a landlord has a valid reason, defined in law
• doubling notice periods for rent increases and giving tenants stronger powers to challenge them if they are unjustified
• giving councils stronger powers to tackle the worst offenders, backed by enforcement pilots, and increasing fines for serious offences.  

We shall keep clients informed of developments.  

If you would like more information about the issues raised in this article please contact Laura on 01228 516666 or click here to send her an email.