Shelter ignores landlord eviction pain as it condemns 'ruthless rental market'

Shelter warns that nearly 1,000 households could be “marched out of their homes” by bailiffs every month the government fails to implement the ban on Section 21.

The pressure group has ignored landlords’ eviction pain highlighted in new Ministry of Justice data and instead focused on the number of Section 21 evictions; 11,400 households in England were removed from their homes by bailiffs using a Section 21 notice between July 2024 and June 2025. It says bailiff-led repossessions were up 8% in Labour’s first year, despite the government being elected with a mandate to ban them immediately.

Shelter also points to more than 30,000 Section 21 no-fault eviction notices that were issued by private landlords in England during the same period.

What it doesn’t report is that landlords are currently waiting just under 28 weeks to evict tenants who don’t leave properties when asked to, up from 25.4 weeks during the same period last year.

These figures suggest strongly that problems with both bottlenecks within the court system and finding bailiffs to complete evictions remain because, although time to evict has increased, the number of landlords evicting tenants fell by 9%. High costs and long waits are costing landlords thousands – and denting confidence.

Following its final reading in the House of Lords, Shelter wants the government to pass the Bill as quickly as possible and name an implementation date.

Marched out

“It is unconscionable that more than a year after the government came to power, thousands of renters continue to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs because of an unfair policy that the government said would be scrapped immediately,” adds Mairi MacRae, director of campaigns and policy.

“At the whim of private landlords, thousands of tenants are being left with just two months to find a new home, plunging them into a ruthless rental market and leaving many exposed to the riptide of homelessness.”