Hello Medway Property News Readers,

As we come towards the winter, we’ve been reassured by the Government that we are very unlikely to experience a new lockdown, however they’re pushing the national housing crisis back on private landlords as a fresh evictions ban has been announced.

In addition to sharing local investment secrets, I am keen to keep you updated with the latest legislative changes and this is certainly a significant shift in pre covid arrangements.

So, what’s happening?

Well, in short, we know the score. HM Courts and Tribunal has confirmed that between 13^th December and 10^th January, no evictions should be scheduled or executed by a bailiff. There is, however, some confusion however, as one London court is quoting dates of 10^th December to 4^th January.

Certainly, it is never nice to evict tenants over the festive period and, before the pandemic, the arrangement was more informal, under the radar and shorter. It does appear that COVID-19 has started to lead to a drastic change in the landscape and the Government is now legislating where it did not previously.

It is my understanding that if landlords have what is deemed to be an ‘urgent eviction’, then they can alert the bailiff manager of the respective court for it to be considered. I have read that paperwork sent out from several courts last week suggested that pressing cases may be fast tracked prior to the deadline.

What do I think of this? Well, I personally think that landlords would be right to hold off carrying out any evictions over the festive period as it is, after all, a period of year when good cheer and kindness are particularly central to life.

Whether or not an informal arrangement should become a formal one however, is a question yet to be answered. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts!

Looking at some statistics, the Ministry of Justice indicated that evictions were up 207% between July and September compared to the previous quarter and, interestingly, mortgage repossessions increased by 756% from 45 between April and June to 385 between July and September.

This certainly reflects a spike following the evictions ban; however, I know that the courts are still working through the backlog. An interesting and somewhat demoralising statistic is how the median average time from claim to repossession has increased from 20.1 weeks in Q2 2019 to 68.4 weeks in Q2 2021. Again, this will reflect the evictions ban, however, would have had catastrophic effects for some landlords!

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this and if you have any questions or comments, the best way to get in touch is by messaging me through LinkedIn.

Hasan,