Yes, this is good news, on the face of it.
But then again, things are going to get a lot worse, before they get better. And when I say get better, that's not necessarily a given.
I'm trying to think of a suitable analogy for housing policy being so complex and things having unintended consequences, but I'm failing at the moment.
Of course it's good news for tenants in that landlords won't be able to evict them for no good reason.
I've a few friends who've suffered a lot of housing instability through landlords deciding to sell up.
Impact of Section 21 evictions on families
(1) Friend and her husband and toddler daughter living in rental property in London. Landlord serves Section 21 Notice as they're selling up. Friend and husband super stressed, need to find new place within tight deadline that is near to nursery and childminder. Manage to do so. Move in to their new place, fast forward a couple of years, she's pregnant with their second child, now their 'new' landlord decides to sell up, serves S.21 Notice. They don't find somewhere else to live in time, end up moving to her parents' place in Hampshire, takes them another year or two to move back to London.
The upshot is that their first child had four different addresses within the first 5-6 years of her life, the second child had two addresses within the first 2-3 years of his life. It's really unsettling for the adults, but must be absofuckinglutely horrendous uncertainty and instability for small children in their formative years, not to mention all the stress the whole family goes through.
(2) Friend in Cornwall served notice after 16 years of paying rent on time, because landlord wanted the property back. (They probably figured they could get a lot more if they renovated it and let it short-term as a holiday let.) Friend and daughter ended up homeless and in temporary accommodation, firstly hostels, then temporary house for iirc around two years, before eventually being rehoused by a housing association. In the meantime, lots of disruption caused to child's education, changing schools, lots of uncertainty and instability, etc.
(3) Friend in Manchester, landlord selling up, caused a lot of angst, because they had kids and needed to be local for schools and coparenting. Eventually moved miles away to different area. Later moved back. The housing problems therefore disrupted schooling and adversely impacted coparenting arrangements.
And those are just the ones that I can think of, off the top of my head.
Abolishing Section 21 evictions would help prevent that kind of instability, eventually...
Evictions set to increase as landlords panic and put their properties on the market to try to sell up before Section 21 is abolished
However, what's going to happen before then is that lots of landlords are going to put their houses on the market, because they are scared they won't be able to evict tenants after the change comes in. What if they need to sell up? As with now, they'll find it more difficult and it will reduce the value of their property, if they need to sell with tenants in situ.
I'm in a couple of landlord groups on Facebook, which I joined due to having occasional lodgers in my flat, and thinking about renting it out at some point if I need to move away for work.
(A lot of the time, I'm schooling landlords about tenants rights, e,g today's argy bargy was with a landlord who's co-owner (sounds like they inherited a property) wants to charge tenants for electricity. Except the landlords don't pay for electricity, because there are solar panels and there's currently no charge for electricity. So I've been trying to school them that no, they can't charge tenants more for electricity than they themselves pay for it, because that's illegal. Other ignorant people say Yeah, charge 'em. And then the landlord says, 'Right, thanks for all your opinions, I'll try to convince them [co-owner].' To which I reply explaining it's not about differences of opinion, it's about the law, what's legal and illegal, and it's illegal to charge them for electricity that you yourselves haven't had to pay for. Argh!')
Lots of landlords are people who've inherited a property like that, or they've bought one or a few properties to effectively be their pension scheme, or they've become 'accidental landlords' due to either moving away for work (maybe to a more expensive area, can't afford to sell up and buy in the new area, or maybe they moved in with a new partner and decided to rent out their old property in case things didn't work out.
Anyway, lots of landlords in those groups are talking about selling up and getting out of the property rental market before the government changes the law and abolishes Section 21 evictions.
So who will landlords sell properties to?
On the one hand, it might be good news for first time buyers and people lower down the property ladder. As Buy-To-Let (BTL) landlords start panicking and selling up, it might push prices down a bit, free up more properties for purchase. That won't necessarily help many renters, but might help the kind of renter who's been paying £1k or £1.5k in rent and struggling to buy a house with a mortgage of £800 or £1,250, or whatever.
But then again, one of the problems with the UK rental market is that corporate investors are muscling in. Banks and venture capitalists are buying portfolios of properties. If you thought that amateur landlords were profiteering bastards, wait till the banks and venture capitalists take hold.
They've done it to the care home sector. They've done it to children's homes. Privatising anything and everything.
What they do is that they buy assets, then take out loans against them (so that that they can suck out the capital, ie extract money), and then whack up lease/rent charges to pay the interest. Like I said, they've done it before.
So on the one hand, there might be lots of properties coming on to the market at the lower ends of the property ladder, which might help those renters who've been priced out of buying to date, but on the other, (providing they can outbid the banks/venture capitalists), the reduction in the number of rental properties will mean that there's even more of a shortage of supply. And you know that thing about supply and demand? Rental prices will go up.
So what does that mean, overall?
The abolition of Section 21 evictions isn't the panacea for all ills.
