There are always stories in the press about criminals and other undesirables citing their human rights as a great reason for being allowed to stay in this country, claiming benefits and living the good life. Sadly this dubious line of defence may soon become yet another obstacle in the way of landlords trying to have problem tenants evicted.
A ruling by the Supreme Court in the case between a social housing tenant and a Local Authority has found that the move to evict the tenant following non-payment of rent was in breach of her right under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights to have respect for a person’s home. The Lords ruled in favour of the tenant and said the Local Authority had not given due consideration as to whether it was “proportionate” to evict the tenant. The original eviction ruling was then overturned.
Why should landlords be concerned?
Unfortunately, because of the lack of clarification as to what constitutes “proportionate” action, buy to let landlords may well find that when they try to evict problem tenants because of antisocial behaviour or rent arrears, the tenant decides to claim the eviction is an abuse of their human rights under Article 8, which means it could become virtually impossible to get rid of them.
There is at least one case currently awaiting ruling whereby a tenant has used the Article 8 defence to avoid eviction, so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is. Hopefully the courts make the decision that Article 8 does not apply in the private rental sector, but if it does, the issue of what “proportionate” action is needs to be clarified.
