Natalie believes that housing should be a basic right in a “so-called civilised society” as you cannot function without a home to live in and that “something drastic” needed to be done to protect renters
A woman who was served two Section 21 notices within 18 months says “something drastic” needs to be done to protect renters.
Natalie, 47, from Brighton told Sky News she “had a meltdown” after receiving the second notice as she had already struggled to find a new home in the current rental market which Natalie says has high levels of “financial discrimination”. Under the law currently, your landlord can evict you through a Section 21 notice. These are commonly called the “no fault possession notice” as landlords don’t have to give a reason for wanting to take possession of the property. Once served, you have two months to vacate the property.
Natalie received her first Section 21 notice just after the Covid-19 lockdowns. The 47-year-old said took this one on the chin as the property wasn’t an “ideal rental”. She explained: “It was quite dilapidated but I had got into quite a good relationship with the landlord and I wasn’t freaking out. They just wanted to sell their flat and get out of the rental market.”
Natalie began looking for a new home, but her experience within the rental market soon turned “nasty” as soaring rents priced her out of many properties. Alongside this, she noticed the quality of the rentals she could afford was getting worse. She said: “You couldn’t even see a property without having a £35,000 guarantor or you would have to have a whole year’s rent in advance and it just turned into a figures game.”
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Natalie told Sky that if you didn’t “look good on paper” you wouldn’t even get to see the flat, and would not be considered for it at all. She added: “You are not going to tick all the boxes. It is financial discrimination.”
Natalie was unable to find a home in time after her first notice and ended up having to stay with friends for two months before being able to find a new home. However, after moving into the place she noticed “shoddy workmanship” throughout the property, and then just three weeks later it flooded.
After a year of living in the place, Natalie was served another Section 21 notice. She was asked to leave this time due to the rent increasing by £150 a month. After receiving the eviction notice, Natalie said she had a “meltdown”. Natalie believes that housing should be a basic right in a “so-called civilised society” as you cannot function without a home to live in.
She said: “It’s an awful thing, not feeling like you’re an adult and not being able to support yourself or find space in a location you have decided is home – finding out that it doesn’t mean anything that you have been living there for 21 years. I’d like people to be able to have a home if we are living in a so-called civilised society. How’s anybody supposed to get anywhere without having their home? It should just be like water and air – we all need that to function. Something really drastic needs to be done.”
The Tories promised to axe no fault evictions in their 2019 election manifesto – in fact it was first promised when Tory MP Theresa May was Prime Minister. Since April 2019, a total of 943,000 people have been given Section 21 notices according to research carried out by YouGov on behalf of the homelessness charity Shelter. This equates to around 500 renters every single day.
The research also revealed that the unplanned moves were also costing private renters in England more than England £550million a year. In the last 12 months alone, 830,000 people have had to move due to either their fixed tenancies ending, being priced out by rent increases or being served with a Section 21.
Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive, said tenants were “bearing the cost of the government’s inaction” and warned any further delays to banning no-fault evictions would see more people “tipped into homelessness”. However, Levelling Up minister Jacob Young defended the government. He said abolishing Section 21s was “the biggest change to the private rented sector in more than 30 years” so it “takes time to make sure we get it right”.