The number of households evicted from rental accommodation in England and Wales rose by 5% in the first three months of 2016 – and could climb higher than the 42,728 private and public sector repossessions by court bailiffs that took place over the whole of 2015.
Seasonally adjusted figures from the Ministry of Justice show there were 10,732 repossessions of rented properties by bailiffs between January and March, up from 10,253 in the final three months of 2015.
But the number was down on the 10,855 repossessions recorded in the first quarter of 2015.
The MoJ says of the 10,636 evictions in England during the first three months of this year, 4942 were by social landlords, 1567 by private landlords and the rest “accelerated claims”, which are quicker than normal evictions. These tend to be used by private rather than social landlords.
Housing charity Shelter says this means around 14,235 people were evicted from their homes by private landlords in the first quarter of 2016, assuming an average of 2.5 people in each household.
And former chairman of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Jeremy Leaf says new tax rules for landlords could mean more private tenants receiving eviction notices.
“The number of evicted tenants is worth keeping an eye on as the restrictions on buy-to-let start to bite. We expect the number of evictions to rise as landlords find it hard to meet their obligations and have no choice but to sell,” he says.
Meanwhile, separate figures from banks and building societies show that the repossession rate among mortgage customers has fallen.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders says 2100 properties were repossessed by its members between January and March, made up of 1,500 homeowners and 600 buy-to-let borrowers.
If repossessions continue at this rate it said it would be the lowest annual number since 1982 when there were 6.9 million mortgages compared with 11.1m today.
For more information, click on the link below