Landlords will have to provide a good reason to evict
residential tenants from now on, the government announced on 15 April, in a proposed major
reform of the private rental market.
It says it will abolish so called "section 21
evictions", which currently allow landlords to bring to an end
residential tenancies without an underlying reason on 2 months'
notice once their contractual term has ended. Instead, landlords
will have to rely on a specific reason, such as the tenant's
failure to pay the rent or the landlord wishing to occupy the
property itself.
The effect of this will be to change what are currently fixed
term tenancies into open ended, rolling tenancies.
The intention is to protect vulnerable tenants from being
evicted from their homes at short notice. According to the
government, this is one of the major causes of family
homelessness.
