“The pandemic also caused serious disruption to the residential property market in terms of lettings.
In March 2020, the Government imposed a moratorium on issuing possession proceedings against tenants based on either ‘no fault’ section 21 notice or rent arrears or other breaches of tenancy. The purpose of this was to prevent tenants becoming homeless or being evicted during the lockdown. The court system was reopened again in September 2020 but, by this time, a serious backlog had already occurred.
The Government then went even further and imposed longer notice periods on section 21 notices and section 8 notices. This meant that landlords were required, in the large majority of cases (subject to certain exceptions), to give six months’ notice to tenants, which again created a further barrier to obtaining possession.
During the secondary lockdown period in late 2020 and following on into 2021, the Government put a ban on enforcement of possession orders too, which meant although a landlord may have an order, they were powerless to enforce it.
Since June 2021, the Government have slowly unwound such restrictions, lifted the ban on enforcement and imposed shorter notice requirements upon landlords, until the system was returned to the pre-pandemic position in terms of notice periods on 1 October 2021.
That said, the court is still playing catch up and we are still seeing many cases delayed more than we usually would expect, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it seems a level or normality has resumed.”
Lee is currently training for the ‘Fortitude’ Last Man Standing challenge next year, just one in a series of challenges he’s taking on to mark his 40th year. He is looking to complete a five-mile route on the hour, every hour, for ten hours - running 50 miles in total. Lee is raising money for Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), a charity aimed at preventing male suicide, which is the biggest killer in men under 45.
For any Property Litigation matters, please do contact the team on tel: 01892 515022 or on email: js@cooperburnett.com (for John Spence) or @lkq@cooperburnett.com (for Lee Quickenden).
