Bacon delves into the practical possibilities and consequences of the Bill, exploring what it will allow landlords to do and not do, and how it will protect tenants. He finds both negative and positive features. For example, as Bacon writes, ‘with some landlords unable to rely on section 21 under the current system, the reform proposals will also improve those landlords’ routes to possession and may also inadvertently strengthen their ability to sidestep the risks of an arrears-based claim against a legally-aided defendant.
‘It is a peculiar feature of the Renters (Reform) Bill that the most diligent and punctilious landlords may be faced with greater costs, slower proceedings, and sometimes greater risks owing to the loss of section 21, while the least diligent and least punctilious—those who are in fact precluded from relying on section 21 in the first place—may find their routes to possession multiplied’.
