Evictions by social landlords in Scotland 2011-2012

This Shelter Scotland report looks at the number of evictions for rent arrears across Scotland from the social sector, looking at both local authorities and Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) for the period April 2011 – March 2012.

In 2011/12 there was no statistically relevant increase in social sector evictions across Scotland. Evictions increased by only 2 evictions across the demonstrating a levelling out in evictions, compared to the previous few years.

This plateau in evictions follows a 49 per cent decrease in evictions over the past 4 years which is likely to be due to landlord good practice and work on tenancy sustainment.
Shelter Scotland recognises the concerted effort by RSL and local authority staff to change policies and practice to bring about the reduction in the use of eviction as an enforcement tool.

The vast majority – around 96 per cent – of eviction actions are for rent arrears and are often a symptom of wider debt and money problems or housing benefit issues.

Shelter Scotland support the use of the eviction process for anti-social behaviour to protect communities and ensure that everyone is able to live peacefully in their own home.
Although there has been a 1 per cent increase in the total amount of rent arrears to Local Authorities in the last year, the total number of tenants in rent arrears has also increased. This suggests that the amount of rent arrears individual tenants are accruing has fallen.

In 2011/12 social landlords issued over 72,000 Notice of Proceedings for recovery of possession (NOPs). This suggests that eviction or the threat of eviction is still being used as a mechanism for rent collection which, we argue, is an expensive and unproductive way to communicate with tenants who are struggling with debt issues.

In 2011/12 almost 1 in 6 local authority tenants received notice of eviction proceedings.
The introduction of ‘Pre-Action Requirements’ for rent arrears cases should mean that the high number of tenants taken to court without resulting in eviction will be reduced. We intend to monitor the operation of Pre-Action Requirements over the coming year.

Despite the national trend showing that eviction rates have levelled out, there remains a great deal of regional variation across different social landlords. Some landlords have actually increased evictions showing that, despite some improvements, more work needs to be done.
We anticipate that cuts to housing benefit, particularly the introduction of new size criteria in the social rented sector in April 2013 and the roll-out of direct payments to social tenants under Universal Credit, may have a significant impact on rent arrears in coming years. Landlords will need to develop new approaches to arrears management and rent collection to ensure these changes do not increase evictions. We intend to report on this in future.