Private landlord possession claims were at the highest level ever in the three months from July to September 2022.

This is according to the latest quarterly statistics on possession claim actions in county courts by mortgage lenders and social and private landlords, published by the Ministry of Justice. 

Mortgage possession claims were 30 per cent up on the same quarter of 2021, possession orders were up by 103 per cent, warrants by 157 per cent, and repossessions by county court bailiffs by 91 per cent. But in each case the numbers were still at least 50 per cent down on pre-covid levels.

This was not the case when it came to landlord possession claims, where numbers exceeded pre-covid levels. Claims were up by 106 per cent to a smidgen over 21,000, orders were up by 174 per cent, warrants by 87 per cent, and repossessions by 10 per cent. 

Some 36 per cent of all landlord possession claims came from social landlords, 32 per cent from private landlords and 32 per cent were accelerated claims.

This was a change of mix from pre-covid levels. In the same quarter of 2019, 62 per cent of all landlord possession claims came from social landlords, 21 per cent from private landlords and 17 per cent were accelerated claims.

‘Private landlord and accelerated procedure volumes have surpassed pre-pandemic Covid levels with private landlord claims recording the highest level ever, this quarter’, said the Ministry of Justice.

The median average time from claim to landlord repossession decreased to 22.3 weeks, down from 68.6 weeks in the same period in 2021.

Landlord Action founder Paul Shamplina said the latest figures are a reflexion of the huge bottleneck that Covid created, with long awaited possession claims finally passing through an already-creaking court system.

‘Despite the data showing that evictions and Section 21 notices have surged recently, they continue to be at very low levels compared to the millions of households within the private rented sector. Our figures suggest that this year some 6,000 people will be evicted via Section 21 notices by private landlords.

‘We also know that an unprecedented number of landlords are selling up. Just over a quarter of landlords who served a section 21 notice in the past 12 months through Landlord Action did so because they were exiting the market’.