Housing: Rent, Evictions and Covid-19

Lord Carrington Excerpts
Tuesday 13th October 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Greenhalgh Portrait Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for this helpful policy point about the Spanish experience. I shall write to her on that matter.

Lord Carrington Portrait Lord Carrington (CB) [V]
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My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Many landlords have mortgages and ongoing repair costs. What measures are proposed to protect them from the hardship imposed on them by those tenants who are financially able but who have decided that they are not willing to pay their rents in the knowledge that they can shelter under the new government umbrella from any immediate consequences?

Lord Greenhalgh Portrait Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
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My Lords, that is precisely why the evictions moratorium had to end. We have to protect landlords from egregious rent arrears as well as from cases of abandonment, fraud, anti-social behaviour and, in the social sector, domestic abuse. That is why the judiciary called for a start on proceedings, to focus on the most difficult cases first.