The Scottish Government’s decision to ban all evictions from both private and social rented properties for six months has been welcomed by tenant’s union Living Rent.
The ban forms part of a set of emergency coronavirus laws brought in to protect people from the fallout of the virus – its inclusion in the upcoming laws was confirmed yesterday by communities secretary Aileen Campbell.
Speaking in the Scottish Parliament Ms Campbell told MSPs: “Nobody as a result of this should lose their house. There should be no eviction as a result of COVID.
“The emergency legislation will have provisions to ensure there can be no evictions from the private rented sector or the social rented sector for six months.
“Aside from the legislation, I have also had assurances from the SFHA that they will not evict anyone at all during this time but of course we’re going to take forward the legislative packages.
“We do not want to see anyone lose their house over the head of this pandemic.”
The news comes after more than 15,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Scottish Government to protect tenants from coronavirus, calling for an emergency halt to all evictions and a ‘rent holiday’ for tenants affected by the pandemic, with these rents to be written off.
The Living Rent union argued that, for tenants, the coronavirus pandemic is not just a health concern, but a financial one too. The union says that these protections are vital because many tenants are in the kind of precarious, low-paid work where taking time off to self-isolate is near impossible.
David Hanson, from Living Rent, said: "This is a brilliant win for tenants up and down Scotland. It was always an absurd prospect that tenants could be threatened with eviction during a global pandemic, and this announcement from the Scottish Government is extremely welcome.
It is now crucial that we also ensure that tenants are not driven into enormous debts over the course of the pandemic. When workplaces shut their doors, tenants who were already struggling to make ends meet simply will not be able to pay their rent. The government must, as a matter of urgency, guarantee these people the protections we need and have these rents written off. Living Rent will continue to vigorously pressure the Scottish Government for further tenant protections.
As well as these emergency measures, this pandemic has underlined just how precarious life has become for far too many tenants. For many of us across Scotland, we have always only ever been one or two paychecks away from poverty. Once this is over, we cannot just go back to normal: the government has got to take serious action on sky-high rents.”
