Tenants who face eviction every year

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/08/tenants-who-face-eviction-every-year

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Private renters are living in constant fear of being evicted, with some households sent eviction notices every 10 months into a tenancy by landlords and letting agents keen to reduce their rights and impose extra fees and rent increases.

Section 21 notices – which controversially allow landlords to evict a tenant without having to give a reason – are being sent to renters together with letters asking if they want to renew their term, leaving some feeling confused about their rights and unable to negotiate on rent rises or charges.

We had to pay excessive fees annually to the letting agency just to continue living in the property

Felix Flicker and his housemates signed up to a 12-month tenancy in Bristol and received an eviction notice after 10 months.

However, the agent indicated that it wouldn’t necessarily enforce the notice and asked if they wanted to sign up for another year with a new contract – and demanded a fee to do so. The following year the same thing happened again, with another Section 21 notice and another tenancy renewal fee. The year after, the housemates were put through the same rigmarole again.

“We had to pay excessive fees annually to the letting agency just to continue living in the property,” says Flicker. “We had to sign a new contract so we were always in the contracted phase rather than the statutory phase of the arrangement.

“They would also hike the rent annually in the knowledge that the housing situation is so desperate in Bristol that if we disagreed with the rent increase we would be out on the street with someone else taking our place.”

The agent charged them £60 in fees for each tenancy renewal.

Section 21 notices allow landlords to start the eviction process without having to prove that the tenant is at fault.

Some landlords issue them almost as soon as a tenancy is signed so that if there are problems later on they can act quickly.

To obtain possession of a property, a landlord has to go to court – but tenants do not always know their rights and can feel their home is in danger once they receive an eviction notice.

Flicker and his housemates felt the eviction notices left them with no bargaining power and under threat of eviction if they refused to pay the higher rent. By the time they decided to move out – to a nearby property let directly by a different landlord – the rent had gone up from £1,000 initially to £1,150 a month.

New figures this week showed the strain rising private rents is putting on tenants. According to the Office for National Statistics, even in London’s cheapest borough – Bexley – private rents equate to 40% of local salaries, rising to more than 70% in parts of the capital.

Giles Peaker, a housing lawyer and partner at Anthony Gold Solicitors, says the use of a Section 21 notice is “a bit brutal, but straightforward and legal”, adding that it is common in the private rental sector.

Peaker says landlords are able to increase the rent on each new tenancy, while an agent renewing the contract would “no doubt charge fees for the new tenancy”.

If a landlord and letting agent allow a tenancy to roll over it becomes a “statutory periodic” tenancy after the first fixed term. “Then the rent could only be increased by a Section 13 notice and two months’ notice,” Peaker says. “Equally, the tenancy could be ended at two months’ notice at any point.”

In contrast, a new tenancy offers 12 months’ security of tenure.

Huw Chance of Flomp, Flicker’s landlord and letting agent, says: “It is part of our business model [to send Section 21s] to keep landlords happy, but it is no way designed to unsettle the tenant ... the letter we send asks whether they want to renew, but is backed with a legal document. We have to serve the notice to give us some sort of security.”

Section 21 notices have come under criticism for enabling “revenge evictions”. These occur when a tenant complains about issues such as damp or a vermin infestation and, instead of the landlord or agent dealing with the problem, the tenant is simply evicted.