Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support landlords who rely on income from less than three rental properties during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government is supporting landlords by helping tenants to pay their rent and has brought forward a significant economic response, including support for businesses to pay staff salaries through the furlough scheme, which has been extended to March.

As made clear in our COVID renting guidance to tenants and landlords, tenants who?are able to pay rent must continue to do so. Where landlords find themselves in coronavirus-related hardship, mortgage lenders have agreed to offer payment holidays of up to six months, with applications now open until 31 January 2021.

Housing possession claims can be actioned through the courts and we have worked with the judiciary to introduce new court arrangements to ensure appropriate protection for all parties

While we have asked bailiffs not to carry out evictions during the national restrictions in England (from 5 November), there will be a number of serious circumstances which will be exempt. This we hope can serve as reassurance to landlords. These serious circumstances are cases of illegal occupation, anti-social behaviour, fraud, eviction of a perpetrator of domestic abuse in social housing and where a property is unoccupied following the death of a tenant. We also intend to introduce an exemption for extreme pre-Covid rent arrears. Together with the pause on enforcement of evictions over the Christmas period, this means bailiffs have been asked not to enforce evictions in England until the 11 January at the earliest, except in the most serious circumstances.

The Government believes this strikes the right balance between prioritising public health and supporting the most vulnerable renters, whilst ensuring landlords can access and exercise their right to justice for the most serious cases.