Housing charity Shelter has removed a report from its website that called on the governments in England and Wales to copy the recent reforms of Scotland’s private rented market.
The disappearance of the report followed heavy criticism of the report by the Residential Landlords Association yesterday. Shelter’s report had heaped praise on Scotland’s decision to ban Section 21 evictions and introduce indefinite tenancies.
Entitled ‘The New Private Rental Tenancies: Evaluating changes to rental agreements in Scotland’, the report said: “In much the same way as abolishing no-fault evictions is changing the experience of renting in Scotland, the abolition of Section 21 in England would be the most significant change to private rented legislation in a generation”.
But the report was almost immediately savaged by David Smith of the Residential Landlords Association for using old data and ignoring the weakness of the housing court system in England and Wales. The report has now been removed from Shelter’s website.
“Shelter fails to recognise key differences between England and Scotland,” says Smith (left).
“The only reason the Scottish model has worked is because a properly funded and staffed housing court was established to cope with the dramatic increase in repossession cases needing to be heard.
“Across England and Wales it takes an average of over five months for landlords to repossess properties through the courts. This is not good enough.
“It is also disappointing that in arguing that changes in Scotland have not affected the supply of homes for rent, Shelter has used figures from before the changes were introduced.”
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