Plan to ban no-fault evictions to return to Commons

The government is set to introduce a bill in the Commons next week which will ban landlords from evicting tenants without a reason.

Ministers are expected to bring the Renters’ Rights Bill for its first reading.

The draft law, which will apply in England, will also give tenants the right to request a pet.

A ban on no-fault evictions has long been promised but repeatedly delayed, with the previous Conservative government running out of time. The bill will be debated later in autumn.

At the heart of the bill – which is aimed at giving renters greater protections and cracking down on a unscrupulous landlords – is a ban on Section 21 evictions.

They are used by landlords to evict tenants with two months’ notice and without any reason needing to be given.

It is understood that ministers would seek to enact the ban immediately after the bill became law – rather than waiting to check whether the court system would be ready to deal with new cases , as the previous government proposed.

The last government warned that getting rid of no-fault evictions will increase pressure on the courts, as landlords will need to go through a legal process to regain possession of their properties when they have legitimate grounds to do so.

The bill would also seek to give renters greater rights to challenge rent increases and introduce new laws to end the practice of rental bidding wars by landlords and letting agents.

It would also expand Awaab’s law – named after the toddler who died after exposure to mould in his family’s social rented home – to the private sector, requiring landlords to fix hazards within a certain timeframe.

New clear and expanded possession would also be given to landlords to reclaim their properties when they need to.

Syed Rafiq, 46, and his family have had to move home 10 times in the past decade due to current housing laws.

In 2015, Mr Rafiq moved to Manchester from London with his wife and two children as he could no longer afford rent in the capital. But each year after that, landlords increased the rent or evicted the family.

“Landlords increased the rent every year, despite the condition of the house,” Mr Rafiq said. “We moved to 10 houses – sometimes it was rent and sometimes landlords wanted to sell, but mainly it was Section 21 and they gave no reason.”

In May, the Rafiq family was served a Section 21 no-fault eviction – with two months to find a new home. The landlord had informed the family that the rent would be increased from £1,400 to £1,500 per month. Mr Rafiq agreed but asked if repairs could be carried out, as the house was infested with mould and fungus and had broken radiators.

He said: “They said ‘no, I don’t have money for repairs and if you’re not happy with the condition of the house, you have to leave the property.’ We thought we would be able to negotiate but the next email we received was the Section 21 notice. I was shocked.”

After finding no affordable properties in the same area, they had to move further out – meaning they are now about four miles away from their children’s school.

The constant instability over the past decade has taken a toll, with Mr Rafiq saying he suffers from high blood pressure and his children have struggled to maintain friendships.

“They do not have any friends,” he said. “Whenever they made some friends, we would leave the neighbourhood.

“It is very difficult for us as parents. We are not giving them any good memories.”

He hopes the renters reform bill will offer more protection to tenants.

“If the bill was in place, I could have negotiated with my landlord,” he said. “My children were going to school in the area, I paid my rent every month, but I had no rights.”

Roughly 500 private renters are served a Section 21 notice every day, according to Shelter. In the past year, over 26,000 households have been threatened with homelessness due to a no-fault eviction, the highest number since records began.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously said too many people were living with the threat of “insecurity and injustice”.

Under the Conservative government, the bill had reached its second reading in the House of Lords when the general election was called and Parliament was dissolved.

Housing charity Shelter has described the new proposed Renters’ Rights Bill as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to fix the private rental system for England’s 11 million renters, which it says has to face record levels of evictions, rising rents and low housing standards.

As well as calling for Section 21 to be free from loopholes, Shelter also wants the bill to limit rent increases in tenancies, fund local authorities to be able to crack down on bad landlords and an end to discrimination in renting.

The Renters’ Reform Coalition previously said the government was “saying the right things” but it would reserve judgement for the detail in the legislation.

It also said a cap on in-tenancy rent increases was needed to avoid unaffordable rent rises becoming another form of no-fault evictions.