Landlords and tenants need the court reform and the system to work properly

• THE Renters (Reform) Bill left the Commons on April 24 to go to the Lords.

Groups representing tenants believe the bill is now so dilute that it has let tenants down.

Landlords on the other hand remain uncertain and risk averse. So if everyone is equally unhappy perhaps a balance has been struck?

The legislation is wide ranging but at its heart is the repeal of section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 where an explanation to end a tenancy does not need to be given after a fixed term has expired.

The bill as it is now has delayed implementation of this repeal pending a review of the county court system and this is where renter activists feel particularly let down.

It is important to give this context as there are real reasons behind it. Currently it takes on average 55 weeks for a relevant case to be resolved due the caseload.

This may be regarded as bad enough from the perspective of 43 per cent of the market consisting of landlords with just one rental property and a further 39 per cent renting 4 or fewer.

If a tenant has stopped paying rent and a landlord is about to lose their business due to mortgage arrears more than a year is by many people’s reckoning, too long to wait.

It will get even worse if nothing changes to the court system with the removal of section 21. This is because of the removal of one of the two processes by which a landlord can get their property back; these are section 21 where no reason has to be given which may or may not end up in court and section 8 which is based on cause and always goes to court.

When section 8 is the only method court caseload is expected to rise by 30,000 pa after the repeal of section 21.

The delay in implementing the repeal of section 21 perhaps surprisingly is not regarded by landlords to be a victory but a staving off of immediate disruption.

The improvement to the court system proposed is undetailed and vague and set against a background of cost cuts to the system spanning many years and only partial success in improvements to the criminal courts since they were targeted for improvement in 2016.

All we know is that it involves some digitalisation of the process and possibly some prioritisation of certain cases and that a figure of £11m to £13m has been suggested as allocated. This does not sound huge in government spending terms.

The minister can determine when the court system has improved at their sole discretion.

Labour have indicated that they will not wait for improvements to the courts before the repeal of section 21 and so landlords will assume no material improvement to the courts before its repeal.

If the Conservatives are really trying to backtrack on the 2019 manifesto promise to repeal section 21 they have set up an open goal for Labour here. They have prepared the ground for one senior minister to determine when the courts are fit for purpose.

For all these reasons landlords are worried that the repeal of section 21 will in effect take place before the courts can handle legitimate concerns in a sufficiently timely manner. This will be reflected by reduced supply and in particular to vulnerable tenants who have difficulty in paying their rent.

Landlords and tenants both enter into an agreement in the expectation both sides will deliver; but you have to assume that things might go wrong and if you can’t rely on a timely legal process you will sooner leave a property empty in some cases than rent it out not expecting to get it back before it is too late.

It is therefore in tenants’ and landlords’ interests combined that substantive court improvements take place visibly and clearly and that the government sets out a clear agenda for civil court reform and proper funding for it with immediate effect.

ALEX SHINDER, NW3