Lawyers say a ‘perfect storm’ is pushing more renters into homelessness. Photograph: Johnny Greig/Alamy View image in fullscreen Lawyers say a ‘perfect storm’ is pushing more renters into homelessness. Photograph: Johnny Greig/Alamy Housing England’s housing courts at breaking point as renters battle no-fault evictions Courts said to be ‘overloaded’ as landlords sell properties and tenants with nowhere to go try to delay evictions
Jessica Murray Social affairs correspondent Mon 7 Sep 2026 08.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google I t is a Wednesday afternoon at Stratford housing court, and every seat in the waiting room is full. Over the next few hours, a conveyor belt of tenants and lawyers file into the courtroom to discuss their housing disputes – up to 29 cases are dealt with in a single day.
In one case, a tenant is trying to buy more time after receiving a section 21 no-fault eviction earlier in the year, before they were banned. He has had no luck finding emergency housing with his local council.
His landlord wants him out in the next 14 days, but he says he needs more time. He is off work due to chronic ill health, and has three children aged eight, five and one – the two eldest are due back at school next week. He wants the maximum 42 days, but the judge grants 28, meaning he could be facing homelessness by the end of the month.
In another case, the judge postpones a section 21 eviction order made just before the new Renters’ Rights Act came in, as some of the documentation was proven to be out of date. This gives the tenant more time to find a new home.
While tenants try to delay their evictions, landlords make requests for their cases to be moved to the high court in an attempt to speed things up – the current wait for bailiffs in this part of London is seven months.
Lawyers have said a wave of last-minute no-fault evictions, and a growing number of landlords selling their properties, is pushing more renters into homelessness and driving England’s housing courts to breaking point.
Mustafa Sidki, a litigation partner at south-east law firm Thackray Williams, said: “We saw a huge increase in section 21 evictions just before the act came in. Now we’re getting a lot of instruction from landlords wanting to serve section 8 eviction notices [used when a tenant has breached a tenancy agreement] because they’re selling up as they say it’s no longer financially viable.
“The courts are overloaded – there’s just not enough court time or judicial time to deal with it. And tenants are living in absolute stress because they don’t know how long they’ve got. It used to take two to three months to get a hearing; now it can take up to a year.”
Official data released last week showed a 16% increase in section 21 evictions between April and June this year, compared with the same period in 2025, as landlords rushed to remove tenants .
“In every section 21 notice we served, the tenant didn’t move out, they have refused to vacate and are asking the courts to give them more time to find alternative accommodation,” said Sidki, who represents landlords and tenants.
This issue, along with the rising number of landlords selling their properties, had created a “perfect storm” in the court system, he said.
Savills estimated that 254,000 buy‑to‑let homes were listed for sale in the year to March 2026, a 28% increase on 2024. About 93,000 landlords left the market in 2025, with a further 110,000 forecast to leave during 2026, according to p…