Landlords are waiting even longer to repossess their properties - up to 25 weeks during the final quarter of 2024.
The latest Ministry of Justice mortgage and landlord possession statistics reveal that the average time from claim to landlord repossession jumped from 23.6 weeks during the same period in 2023.
Its figures also confirm that landlords have been rushing to reclaim their property, as English courts received 32,287 accelerated procedure claims by landlords in 2024, more than during any other year since 2016. These resulted in 11,373 evictions.
Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina (pictured) says that Section 24, increased interest rate rises at the end of 2022, uncertainty around drawn-out renters’ reform and EPC changes have proved too much for many smaller landlords, resulting in the inevitable ramping up of those serving and issuing Section 21 claims.
“The courts have not been resourced up, leaving a lack of confidence,” he tells LandlordZONE.
“No landlord should have to wait 15 months for an eviction date, which we have seen at Landlord Action. The previous government should have gone ahead with housing courts when they had a chance.”
Sarah Taylor (pictured) of law firm Excello adds: "We have seen that the uncertainty over the changes to the legislation has led to a number of landlords choosing to either leave the rental market or to obtain vacant possession of their property whilst they wait to see what happens when the new legislation comes into force".
In Q4 2024, 38% (9,085) of all landlord possession claims were social landlord claims, compared to 30% (7,084) private landlord claims and 33% (7,841) accelerated claims. This contrasts with pre-covid numbers when most claims (about 60%) were social landlord claims.
The government reports that increases in landlord possession claims have been driven by rises in London, although this was offset slightly by falls in Wales, the North East, and the South West. In the capital, there was an increase of 10% (from 7,632 in Q4 2023) for landlord claims and an increase of 7% for landlord orders (from 5,479 in Q4 2023).
London local authorities account for six of the 10 boroughs with the highest rate of private landlord repossessions. Waltham Forest is top (762 per 100,000 households owned by a private landlord), followed by Newham and Barking and Dagenham with 537 and 475 claims.
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