Nationwide breaks ranks and backs cross-party plans to scrap Section 21 evictions

The UK’s second largest mortgage lender the Nationwide building society has broken ranks and, highly unusually, supported the key political parties by saying it believes Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions should be scrapped. Both the Tories, Labour and LibDems have all said if elected they’d get rid of Section 21 evictions and would transfer the process to the court system. This proposal, many agents and landlords argue, will make it more difficult to eject tenants who have stopped paying the rent or who are behaving antisocially. The building society’s disclosure came during an industry roundtable convened earlier this week. It included representatives from ARLA Propertymark, Connells, the soon to be merged NLA and RLA, Generation Rent and Countrywide. The group also agreed that letting agents should play a stronger role in ensuring tenants understand the legal framework of their tenancy, although this is likely to infuriate some landlords who view empowered and more knowledgeable tenants as future ‘troublemakers’. The event also recommended that insurance products aimed at the lettings industry should include clauses that prevent landlords and agents using ‘No DSS’ clauses within their property ads. Paul Wootton, Nationwide Building Society’s Director of Home Propositions (left), said: “It was great…