Property tribunals guilty of ‘gross invasions of landlord privacy’

Landlords are facing “gross invasions of privacy” when dealing with the First Tier Tribunal in Scotland, a leading property lawyer claims.

Changes to the grounds for possession of rented properties are creating intrusive enquiries into the personal circumstances of landlords, according to Emma King, co-founder of Complete Clarity Solicitors and Simplicity Legal in Glasgow (main picture).

She cites a recent case in which a property owner seeking eviction on grounds of non-payment of rent was asked for 41 individual pieces of information, not only about his own personal affairs, but also about those of everyone in his household.

And she spoke about another case in which both landlord and tenant were in favour of the termination of their rental agreement, but the First-Tier Tribunal refused to allow it.

Discretionary grounds

King says the current issues arose from the amendments made in the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform)(Scotland) Bill last year to the Private Housing (Tenancies)(Scotland) Act 2016, focusing on grounds for eviction.

In the original act, there were 14 grounds on which eviction was mandatory, including non-payment of rent, criminal or anti-social behaviour or the landlord’s wish to sell the property. But these grounds were made discretionary.

All contested requests for possession are subject to a reasonableness test, and must now go to the tribunal, which has discretion to refuse the eviction.

This constitutes a gross invasion of privacy, putting the most confidential information into the public domain.”

She also says: “In a recent case, the tribunal ordered the petitioner to provide evidence on 13 points relating to their personal and financial circumstances. This required 41 separate pieces of information about assets, debt, income and expenditure.

“This constitutes a gross invasion of privacy, putting the most confidential information into the public domain, including into the possession of the tenant, of whom the tribunal required no similar information,” she adds.