Pandemic Arrears Crisis: Private Landlord Survey Data, 2021

The Private Rented Sector has grown considerably over the last 25 years and is now a crucial part of the UK's housing mix. The sector provides easily accessible accommodation for young, mobile, transient populations, but is increasingly being used to provide long term accommodation for vulnerable groups who in earlier times might have been able to access local authority or housing association accommodation. An online survey was selected as the principal data collection tool for the research. The resulting raw data has been attached as an SPSS Statistics Data Document.

The Private Rented Sector has grown considerably over the last 25 years and is now a crucial part of the UK's housing mix. The sector provides easily accessible accommodation for young, mobile, transient populations, but is increasingly being used to provide long term accommodation for vulnerable groups who in earlier times might have been able to access local authority or housing association accommodation. With the arrival of the pandemic, the Scottish Government made a series of temporary changes to the legislation that governs the tenant eviction process. These changes have been made over concerns that Covid-19 would result in an increase in evictions resulting in tenants being made homeless and support services being overwhelmed. The changes include extensions to notice periods (up to 6 months) for certain grounds, the introduction of 'Pre-action requirements', and the re-classification of all grounds as discretionary. Importantly the changes also include a ban on evictions (technically a ban on the enforcement of evictions) due to tenant non-payment. Whilst these changes are believed to have safeguarded tenants and support services in the short term, they have not addressed the underlying problems, and unprecedented levels of rent arrears have accumulated for private landlords. Every additional month of arrears increases tenant debt levels and further reduces landlord income. In many cases landlords rely on this income to support their living expenses or service a mortgage. The changes are only temporary and there is great concern as to what will happen when the legislation expires. Some believe that there will be no markable increase in the number of evictions, others belief that there will be a significant increase leading to many tenants being made homeless. While the truth is likely to be somewhere in between, policy makers, service providers and charities urgently need a more detailed understanding of what is likely to happen, to allow them to create policies that minimise the impacts of the ban when it comes to an end. To obtain this understanding we need to identify the extent of the problem as it stands, specifically, how many landlords have arrears and how large are the arrears? We also need to gain insights into how landlords are currently dealing with arrears, to identify how familiar landlords are with the temporary changes in legislation, and to ascertain whether the support currently available, such a loan schemes, is fit for purpose. Insight into the resilience of landlords and identification of the tipping points that may result in an increase in evictions is also necessary, as is the identification of landlord intentions following expiry of the legislation. Unfortunately, we do not currently know the answers to these questions. In fact, we know very little about the behaviours or intentions of landlords in general. This research therefore aims to answer these questions by undertaking primary research with the support of landlords. The research will take the form of a quantitatively focused online questionnaire, which will be issued to a large population of Scottish Private Rented Sector (SPRS) landlords via our project partner SafeDeposits Scotland. 

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