Section 21 – What is it?

Section 21 allows landlords to evict tenants from their property at any time, without giving a reason. It works within a time scale (for example after a period of tenancy stated in the contract has come to an end)

In 2019 the Renters’ Reform was proposed, part of which was to ban ‘no fault’ Section 21 evictions. Other parts of the reform included the introduction of ‘lifetime deposits’. This is the idea that a tenant could transfer their original deposit to a new property, reducing the amount of money they need to move.

COVID-19 caused a delay to the ban which was due to resume in the Autumn of 2021. It was recently announced that there will be further delay until 2022.

Why the delay?

The white paper (a policy paper outlining plans for the legislation) is facing delay so that ministers are able to take into consideration the findings of the National Audit Office’s review of regulating the sector. This is due to be released in the next couple of months.

Why is it changing?

The proposed changes are to give an across-the-board fairer way of evicting tenants for both landlords and tenants. This will improve the security for the tenants, but also help landlords remove problem tenants under Section 8 when there is a valid reason.

Although nothing has currently changed regarding the ban, there are still changes landlords need to be aware of surrounding evictions. Emergency COVID measures meant an extension of the notice periods for serving eviction notices. As of 1st October 2021, notice periods have reverted to what they were pre-pandemic. There are new forms required to serve both Section 21 and Section 8 eviction notices.