It may not go on the market. It may, as I and other noble Lords have said, be for the use of the landlord who owns the property. There are a variety of reasons why a landlord should wish to repossess a property.
The noble Baroness’s question on retaliatory eviction is very valid. She will remember that the intention of the Deregulation Act 2015 was to provide tenants with protection from such eviction. Where a tenant has raised a legitimate and verified complaint with the local authority they cannot be evicted using the no-fault Section 21 procedure for six months.
The noble Baroness also talked about buy-to-let mortgages. Mortgage lenders have told us that following the introduction of our model tenancy agreement, with appropriate break clauses, there is no longer any impediment to permitting longer tenancies for their landlord customers. The Nationwide Building Society permits tenancies of up to three years and Barclays for
up to two years. Lloyds, the biggest player in the buy-to-let market, is in full agreement in offering three-year tenancies and plans to implement the policy by the summer of 2016. The Housing Minister wrote to the Council of Mortgage Lenders in January, urging it to encourage those lenders who have not changed their policies to do so, and further discussions will be held.
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The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, suggested that when the tenant is in arrears the landlord could use the abandonment procedure to regain possession. The abandonment procedure, which is introduced in Part 3 of the Bill, is designed specifically to deal with abandoned properties—which may also be commensurate with not paying rent—but it is not intended as a route to remove a tenant in arrears. It is for a property that has genuinely been abandoned. Where a tenant was in arrears but confirmed that they were still in occupation of the property, you could not use that procedure.
The noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Greaves, talked about the impact on communities. Recent figures from the English Housing Survey for 2013-14 show that tenancy lengths are, on average, three and a half years. According to the English Housing Survey, three in four private renters ended their last tenancy because “they wanted to move”. Tenants value the flexibility that private renting offers, with the majority of people under 35 saying that they do not want longer tenancies, as my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes pointed out.
I believe the current framework strikes the right balance between the rights of landlords and of tenants. I hope that that will encourage the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.