Last-minute Efforts To Stop Evictions Denied

With the Covid-19 moratorium on eviction cases expired on Monday, September 21, as many as 55,000 private renters are at risk of eviction.

From March to August this year, over 55,000 private renters have been given an eviction notice but they were protected due to a ban imposed by the government during the height of the pandemic.

Those served with an eviction notice after August has a six-month notice period. Government officials believe this can curb the wave of homelessness caused by job loss.

A government spokesperson said: "We've taken unprecedented action to support renters by banning evictions for six months, preventing people getting into financial hardship and helping businesses to pay salaries.

"To help keep people in their homes over the winter months, we've changed the law to increase notice periods to six months and introduced a 'winter truce' on the enforcement of evictions for the first time.

"In addition, we have put in place a welfare safety net of nearly £9.3bn and increased Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the lowest 30% of market rents."

But the staggering number of those served notices from March to August is giving Housing Campaigners cause for alarm.

Housing group, Generation Rent divulged that 200 judges have been trained to deal with housing cases as the court gears in full operation mode with all the backlogs.

Baroness Olly Grender filed a motion to block the removals from pushing forward. The Lib Dem peer filed a 'Prayer to Annul' hoping the government would reconsider its pandemic regulations.

Baroness Grender told the Mirror: "This Government made a promise that no renter who has lost income due to COVID would lose their home, yet from Monday tens of thousands are facing that very real threat.

"Rather than scrapping no-fault evictions as promised in the election, Tory Ministers are enabling evictions of an estimated 55,000 private renters. People who have been furloughed, made redundant, have children going to a local school are all under threat."

News from PropertyWire, however, reports that Conservative peers voted down the motion made by the Baroness. The motion was defeated by 126 votes to 266, most of the Labour peers abstained from voting.

After the rejection of the motion, Baroness Grender told The Mirror:

"The fact that during a second wave of an epidemic and in the run-up to winter some families may now be facing homelessness thanks to the government's legislation is shameful.

"Although this motion was a rather unprecedented tactic, we find ourselves in unprecedented times.

"It was a missed opportunity to help all those families threatened with eviction, with no cash and no options, who are in desperate need of support."