Member Article

Gateshead is “handing back the keys hotspot” as tenant evictions reach record high

Newly-released figures show Gateshead is the North East’s eviction capital - as the number evictions from UK privately rented homes hits a record high.

Ministry of Justice statistics show 21% of landlord possession orders granted by North East courts in the final three months of 2013 related to properties in the borough, followed by 18% in Newcastle and County Durham.

There were no evictions at all in either South Tyneside or Redcar.

One North East lettings boss believes the figures are evidence of a significant cultural change in UK housing which sees less and less people owning their own homes.

Numbers of evictions by North East local authority area Q4 2013 (September – December)

1. Gateshead - 13

=2. Newcastle/County Durham - 11

4. Middlesborough - 10

=5. Hartlepool/Sunderland/Northumberland - 7

8. Stockton - 5

9. Darlington - 3

=10. Redcar/South Tyneside - 0

Across the United Kingdom 37,739 people were evicted from a privately-rented property in 2013 – the highest level since records began.

At the same time the number of homes repossessed by mortgage lenders fell to the lowest level in a decade. Ajay Jagota of South Shields-based property firm KIS Lettings believes the two facts are related.

The firm manages properties for over 700 landlords from branches in Sunderland, North Shields, South Shields and Welwyn Garden City and was named Letting Agent of the Year at the 2013 national Landlord and Letting Awards.

Ajay said: “It’s no coincidence that as landlord possessions rise, mortgage repossessions fall – it’s a clear sign of a cultural shift away from home ownership and towards renting.

“The number of people renting in the North East has trebled over the last ten years, so of course there are going to be more people evicted from rented homes as a result. At the same time the number of people buying their own homes has fallen sharply, not necessarily because people aren’t able to be homeowners but because they don’t want to.

“These figures are no cause for alarm – they relate to just 61 properties out of 2.6million people in the North East, if anything a small total considering recent economic conditions.

“In fact the comparatively low total of overall evictions is testament to the high quality of property management in the region, where tenants are overwhelmingly reliable and landlords and letting agents highly adept at sensitively managing the tenancies of people who do run into difficulties.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ajay Jagota .