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Increasing numbers of landlords are evicting tenants at the last minute before the law changes to outlaw the practice in next month, charities have said.
The renters’ union Acorn told the Guardian that no-fault evictions made up one in five of the reports they received from members in October, rising to nearly one in three by January.
The Renters’ Rights Act, which was in development last year and will come into effect on 1 May 2026, will abolish section 21 of the existing Housing Act, which allows landlord to evict without providing a justification to the court.
“This isn’t a coincidence. Landlords are clearly rushing to force through last-minute evictions before the ban comes into force.,” said a spokesperson from Acorn.
Their concerns have been echoed by tenants’ organisations across England, particularly in dense urban areas where competition among tenants is high.
Kim Mansell, 36, has been living in Lady Florence Courtyard in Lewisham for five years, and now checks her letterbox every day for a possession order telling her to leave. The landlord evicting her is, ironically, a London homelessness charity called the 999 Club.
“It’s absolutely diabolical.” She said. “I told them how much I love living here. How much I like the fact that my rent goes to charity, that I don’t have a family, so I don’t have anywhere else to fall back on.”
At the start of last year, while the renters’ rights bill was going through parliament, the charity increased Mansell’s rent by 11%. She tried to negotiate, with no response. Then in June she was served a no-fault eviction notice.
Panicked, she contacted the 999 Club to discuss the change, but they told her a meeting “would not be productive or appropriate”. In the months since, the charity has not budged, and while Mansell contemplates the reality of homelessness herself, they have advertised her flat at a price 36% higher than what she is paying.
Other tenants confirmed that the charity had always negotiated rent in the past, and could not remember a time that they had evicted in order to achieve a rent hike.
Presented with this information, the charity said: “Any enforcement action is only taken following robust legal advice and in cases where there are significant, persistent issues.”
“While we don’t comment on individual tenancies, we have never evicted anyone as a means to increase rents,” it said.
Hugh Wilkinson, head of housing at the Central England Law Centre, said he has been receiving a lot of section 21 cases. The lawyer, whose clients are concentrated in Coventry and Birmingham, said he was seeing long-term tenants shocked by unexpected breaks in long-term relationships with their landlords.
“It can be quite upsetting for people,” he said. “To think that they’ve been there for a long time and that the length of time doesn’t make any difference. The court won’t take into account the fairness of it.”
Isaac Rose, 33, an organiser for the Greater Manchester Tenants Union, was himself served with a section 21 eviction three weeks ago. It came after a dispute around a proposed 29% rent increase.
His landlord tried to file a section 13 notice for a rental increase, and when that failed due to incorrect filing, they used a section 21 eviction.
“It’s pretty clear that they did that because of the change in the law,” Rose said. “Once section 21 is abolished, it would be a lot harder and slower to get us out.”
Meera Chindooroy, deputy director for campaigns at the National Residential Landlords Association, said: “Landlords will be looking at their current tenants and considering whether these are tenancies that they are happy to continue with after May, or whether they have concerns about any risks – rent arrears, for example, or issues with antisocial behaviour.”
Unions, charities, and other third sector organisations across England said the change could not come soon enough. Many of them campaigned for the law to be introduced, and were consulted as it was written.
The housing charity Shelter said: “It’s especially outrageous that some landlords are exploiting this thin window of time to serve no-fault evictions. It just goes to show how vital these new changes are for renters.”
Though the law is changing, proceedings initiated before 1 May 2026 will be allowed to continue as before.
