Evictions by social landlords in Scotland 2016-2018

This report follows on from a 2017 report into social sector evictions from Shelter Scotland and focuses primarily on eviction actions by social landlords in 2017/18, with an analysis of trends from the last five years. The report concludes by making a series of recommendations to reduce the use of evictions across Scotland, building on good practice from the sector.

Over the last twelve months, evictions by social housing providers (housing associations and councils) have remained static. In 2017/18 there were 2,267 social sector evictions, compared with 2,276 evictions in 2016/17.

1,322 of these evictions were carried out by local authorities and 945 evictions by registered social landlords (RSLs). 93% of evictions were carried out due to rent not being paid, whilst anti-social behaviour accounted for 6% of evictions.

Eviction is an ineffective, costly and time consuming way for social landlords to deal with rent arrears.

Over the last decade the number of social sector evictions in Scotland have come down by a third since the high of 2008/09 (3,297) but, over the last five years, they have increased by 44% to the current level.

Pre-action requirements were intended to reduce the number of evictions in Scotland’s social sector, by ensuring there was consistent intervention by all social landlords at the early stages of rent arrears to prevent eviction action. However, after their introduction in 2012 and an initial reduction in evictions, since 2013/14 the number of evictions has been increasing.