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Government warned over no-fault eviction hit to affordable rural housing
Government plans to reform Section 21 evictions could lead to less rural homes being available for rent, warns the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV).
The CAAV has said the new laws could lead to landlords swapping tenures to holiday lets, selling homes or leaving properties empty.
Kate Russell, policy and technical advisor at the CAAV, told Inside Housing: “We understand there are issues [with tenancies] in the private rented sector but the rural economy does get overlooked as it operates in a rather different way than urban-dominated activity.
“You have traditional landowners who have been in the business of letting properties for centuries, small-scale farmers and individuals, it’s a different set-up.”
Last week, prime minister Theresa May announced plans to clamp down on landlords who evict tenants at short notice by abolishing so-called “no-fault evictions”.
The government has hailed the move as “the biggest change to the private rental sector for a generation”, and said landlords would no longer be able to evict tenants at short notice without a concrete reason.
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Under current Section 21 eviction laws, landlords are able to give tenants as little as eight weeks notice to leave a property after a fixed-term contract has come to an end.
According to Ms Russell, many farmers lease their properties from landowners and sublet parts of their properties to subsidise farm income, often to farm labourers.
Agreements made often see farm labourers pay a lower rent in exchange for working on the local farm. However if the rules are changed, such agreements may become obsolete.
“The unintended consequences could be quite serious for rural housing,” Ms Russell said.
“In an area where cottages become available, there are more employees on farms. It has been a useful source of income for famers, what usually happens is that the tenant and landlord (farmer) come to a deal and then the rent level is reflected in the farm, or the cottage rent is split between them [farmer and tenant].
“It has to be that if there is a head tenant [such as a farmer] and the head tenant’s tenancy comes to an end, then that would need to be grounds to serve notice. If vacant possession is required [at the end of a head tenant’s own tenancy] then any changes [to the law] need to make sure that farmers aren’t in breach of their own agreements.”
Ms Russell added that anecdotal evidence from Scotland, which scrapped Section 21 in 2017, has shown that many rural landlords had changed their properties to other types to avoid tougher regulations
She added: “Our Scottish members have reported some evidence of changing use from rental to holiday lets or landlords selling up or leaving properties empty, which is extraordinary.
“These [changes] are coming on the heels of all the work on energy efficiency which, with traditional properties which are often off the gas grid, has led to landlords thinking that it is harder to keep it together – so [they] move to a sector which is less regulated.”
