Legislation Update: Renting Homes Bill - Retaliatory Eviction

Retaliatory Eviction

Retaliatory Eviction, or Revenge Eviction (sometimes shortened to RE) is the practice where a landlord would evict a tenant simply because they have made a legitimate repair complaint that the landlord does not want to oblige by. 

The practice is already illegal under consumer law, however the Welsh Government are planning to formally outlaw the practice in the Renting Homes Bill.

England & Wales

If you have properties in England, Retaliatory Eviction has already been made illegal under the Deregulation Act 2015, however this Act does NOT APPLY IN WALES.

What does this mean for Landlords?

This policy will apply to every landlord who seeks to evict a tenant, you cannot and should not evict a tenant simply because that have made a legitimate complaint against the property. This measure is designed to target the criminal landlord who keep tenants in squalor and evict those who ask for basic repairs.

So what should you do?

At present this hasn’t come into force yet, however the best way to protect yourself against future unscrupulous claims is to keep a constant log of every complaint that a tenant has made and what has been done in relation to that complaint. In the future you may have to prove to the court that you are not evicting just because a complaint has been made.

YOUR AGENT Comment.

Tenants could keep making complaints, month after month, to avoid eviction. We do not support the practice of retaliatory eviction, however we do not want to see this policy become used as a weapon against good landlords, by tenants doing everything they can to avoid eviction.


If you are a landlord who does not want to go through this onerous process then why not let YOUR AGENT be your agent? And let us take the hassle out of managing your property.