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Possession

What is this?

Private rented property accounts for around 10% of all households in England. The sector provides homes for in excess of 2.5 million households unable or unwilling to buy a property of their own and is the tenure of choice for a growing section of society.

However this was not always the case. Prior to the Housing Act 1988, rent control and indefinite security of tenure limited the appeal of residential letting as an investment vehicle and as such minimised the contribution the sector was able to make in providing homes.

The NLA's position

The NLA recognises that legislation since 1988 governing the private rented sector has sought to balance the need for a landlord to be able to regain possession of his or her property with the provision of secure homes for tenants. We feel that it has achieved this goal fairly well and current legislation represents an equitable legal framework with provisions for security of tenure and well defined grounds for possession available to the courts service. We believe that the existing laws incentivise investment whilst providing for security of tenure and therefore would not benefit from subsequent reforms. However we would like to see some practical changes to the ways that measures are implementation through the courts.

What we're doing

• Contributed to the Carsberg Review of Residential Property
• Contributed towards the Law Commission’s ongoing reviews of dispute resolution and tenure
• Lobbying Central Government to ensure that the provisions of the Housing Act are not degraded to the detriment of private landlords
• Calling for reform of the way that legal proceedings are handled in relation to residential rental disputes.

What's your view?
• Complete our online survey, and let us know what you think.

Read the NLA Bulletin for the latest news:
• Bulletin no.2 : April 2008 [ 250kb PDF file]
• Bulletin no.1 : December 2007 [ 195kb PDF file]