A couple of months ago the Government announced that there would be a stay on evictions over the Christmas period in England and Wales. This period was and is defined as 11 December 2020 to 11 January 2021. Then when the Tier system came into place the Government requested that possession court orders should not be enforced in areas in Tiers 2 and 3. And then when the rushed second National Lockdown was announced the Lord Chancellor requested that evictions should not take place in England during the period of the National Lockdown from 5 November 2020 to and including 2 December 2020. All very messy and with a question over whether evictions could take place between the end of the National Lockdown v2 and the start of the Christmas period stay. These requests were caveated with provisions that evictions could still take place in some situations defined as the most egregious (most serious, shocking) cases. Thank goodness for dictionaries. This means those cases of domestic violence, anti-social behaviour, illegal occupation, fraud to secure the grant of a tenancy, death of a sole tenant and interestingly serious rent arrears.
Housing lawyers had questioned the legality of these requests and indeed that a failure by the bailiffs to following a possession order could allow a landlord to claim compensation. The Government has today at least partially resolved the situation by passing new regulations which come into force today which are The Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction and Taking Control of Goods) (England) Regulations 2020. Interestingly these regulations apply to England only and therefore Wales are in the same position as they were yesterday and we assume that the Welsh Assembly will do something similar. It not clear why England only as the there is only one court covering England and Wales.
The main takeaways
Well in England the evictions cannot take place between 17 November 2020 and 11 January 2021 except in the situations listed above for the private rented sector. The meaning of serious rent arrears is clarified and the regulations state that there must be arrears of at least nine months at the date on which the order for possession was granted and that any rent arrears accruing after 23 March 2020 must be disregarded. Effectively this means that at least 9 month of arrears would have to have been accrued before 23 March 2020. There is no limit on the amount of arrears that can accrue during Covid 19 and still no possession till January.
None of this prevents the service of notice or the application to court, it is only about enforcement of the court order.
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