100 British tenants a day lose homes
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Tracy Strassburg and her sons Sebastian, 7, and Charlie, 5, have been forced to move house six times in seven years
A record number of British renters are facing eviction from their homes, a new analysis of the country’s housing crisis shows.
More than 100 tenants are losing their homes a day, with analysts blaming the spiraling costs of renting a property and a long-running freeze to housing benefit for the rising number of evictions, The Guardian reports.
According to a study by the Cambridge Center for Housing and Planning Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), over 40,000 tenants in England were evicted in 2015, an increase of a third since 2003 and the highest level recorded.
High numbers of “no-fault” evictions by private landlords are driving the increase in rents and over 80% of the extra evictions occurred under a Section 21 notice, which gives a tenant two months to leave.
There is no need for the landlord to give a reason or any wrongdoing on the part of the tenant.
The research raises concerns that even those people in work are also struggling to pay their rents as they have become unaffordable due to changes in welfare benefits.
EA
