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Stamp duty holiday leading to homelessness, new figures suggest

Exclusive: Tenants’ rights activists tell openDemocracy that some landlords are trying to cash in by speeding up evictions

By Chaminda Jayanetti
Stamp duty holiday leading to homelessness, new figures suggest
A tent used by rough sleepers on Tottenham Court Road, central London, February 2021 | Belinda Jiao/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/PA Images
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The number of people facing eviction due to landlords wanting to sell or re-let their property shot up by 79% in the wake of the government’s stamp duty cut, openDemocracy can exclusively reveal.

Statistics published by the Ministry of Communities, Housing and Local Government, analysed by openDemocracy, show that between the first and second quarters of the 2020-21 financial year, the total number of households in England officially considered to be threatened with homelessness rose by 23%, to 31,510.

But there was a far bigger jump among households deemed to be threatened with homelessness due to landlords wishing to sell or re-let. This figure rose from 2,280 to 4,090, an increase of 79%.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0