One of the big concerns with the Renters Rights Bill has been about the ability of the courts to cope. It is believed that the bill will create considerable additional work.
At the moment, a substantial number of claims are brought using the paper-based accelerated procedure. This is used solely for no-fault section 21 claims, which are to be abolished under the act.
At present, all possession claims brought under the section 8 procedure involve a court hearing. This is where landlords present their claim and provide evidence.
Clearly, if all claims are to require a court hearing, this will put more pressure on the courts. Who are already under enormous pressure anyway.
This was the subject of one of the House of Lords debates on the bill, which took place on 28 April.
Should the bill implementation be delayed?
For example, a conservative amendment proposed that
… the Lord Chancellor to assess the operation of the possession process to ensure that the courts service has the capacity to deal with the increased demand expected because of this Bill.
This is what happened with the Renters Reform Bill under the previous government. The implementation of reforms was to be delayed until the system was deemed to be capable of handling claims under the new act within a reasonable period of time.
Needless to say, this was hugely unpopular with tenants’ groups. They felt they had suffered ‘arbitrary evictions’ for no good reason long enough. Landlords agreed with the then government.
However, landlords were due to be disappointed by the current government’s take on this. As is the case with practically all non-government amendments, the ‘noble lords’ were requested to withdraw it.
But this debate was interesting in that the government minister, Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, gave some interesting information about the steps the government is taking to ensure that the courts are able to cope, when the bill comes into force.
An update from the Baroness on court improvements
Let’s take a look at what she said. She started off by saying:
We have no intention of delaying these urgent reforms while we wait for an unnecessary assessment of the existing possession process. The proposed assessment will provide no new insight or benefit to interested parties. Compelling the courts and tribunals to undertake such an assessment would detract from their vital work to make sure that the courts are ready for our reforms.
Going on to say
Quarterly data on the operation of the court possession process for rented properties is already, and will continue to be, published by the Ministry of Justice. This is regularly reported and scrutinised. The published statistics include both the volumes and timeliness of possession orders and the enforcement of those orders.
Court rules specify that possession claims requiring a hearing should be listed within four to eight weeks of the claim being issued. Landlord possession claims are taking an average of eight weeks … to progress from the issue of a claim to a possession order in the most recent quarter from October to December 2024.
Just pausing here – is this the experience of landlords taking possession claims through the courts? Have any of you been able to go from issue to gaining your order under the Section 8 procedure?
The minister then said that they were working with the MoJ to ensure that the courts would be read,y including
ensuring that the county court will have the capacity and resources it needs to adjust to any changes in possession caseloads
Saying that that
In the longer term, we expect our reforms to reduce the volume of court possession claims, as only those cases where there is a clear, well-evidenced ground for possession will be able to proceed. This will help offset any increased pressure on the courts resulting from our reforms in due course.
His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service is building an end-to-end digital service for resolving all possession claims in the county courts in England and Wales, to make processes more efficient and easier to understand for landlords and tenants—a much-needed reform. Funding has been agreed and provided to enable the design and build of this new service, which is well under way and builds on the existing digitisation of the justice system.
How long will all this take?
During the debate, it had been claimed that court reforms were years away. The Baroness said that this is actually not the case. The system being built is not a new system being created from scratch. It builds on and is a further module of the existing system. It will, she said
offer an online route for making and responding to possession claims, filing documents and receiving updates and outcomes, offering improved user experience through guided journeys.
She confirmed that they would be analysing the existing data, which they considered sufficient for their purpose. For all these reasons, they did not want to and are not going to slow down the implementation of the bill.
The digitalisation process is, she told us, already underway and already costed. She did not accept that the system would be delayed in the way that other government IT initiatives have been delayed in the past.
It would, she added inevitably, all have been a lot easier if they had not been left with a £33 billion black hole by the previous government.
And finally
So this is very interesting. The court system is to be ‘digitalised’. Presumably along the lines of the existing online possession procedure used for claims based on rent arrears.
However, hopefully the new system will provide that some types of claim can be dealt with on a wholly paper-based ‘accelerated procedure’ which would do away with many of the hearings.
Perhaps making some types of hearings conditional upon tenants putting in a defence. A large number of tenants fail to attend possession hearings at the moment, which is arguably a waste of judicial time.
I would also mention that the four to eight weeks window for the issue of claims does not take into account the time the papers sit in the court office waiting to be issued, or the lengthy delays in obtaining a bailiffs appointment once the possession order has been made.
What is your view on all this? Do you think the court improvements will be completed in time? What’s your experience in taking a possession claim through the courts?
See more of our posts about the Renters Rights bill here.