The stay on housing possession cases, brought in by Practice Direction (PD) 51Z, could continue beyond the current 25 June cut-off point or even lead to long-term change, barristers have predicted.
PD 51Z came into force on 27 March and was intended to last 90 days, with the purpose of managing court capacity and protecting public health. In NLJ this week, Julian Gun Cuninghame, Gough Square, and Romana Canneti, 4 King’s Bench Walk, write: ‘138,000 possession claims are brought every year in the county courts: their possession lists go on all day, with large numbers of people awaiting their five-minute hearings milling unhygienically around the court buildings.’
Therefore, ‘given the current capacity of the county courts to handle possession lists, and the risks to public health of possession orders, PD 51Z may well be extended… additional exceptions may also be in the offing.
‘Furthermore, the active risk of a second spike in COVID-19 cases, either this autumn, or at some other time—not to mention the possibility of future national emergencies—suggests that PD 51Z may bring permanent changes to the Civil Procedure Rules, whether by rule change or a new PD.’
Lobbying of the Master of the Rolls by the Property Bar Association and the Property Litigation Association preceded an amendment to PD 51Z on 17 April 2020 (effective from 20 April 2020). It created three exceptions to the stay: two relating to squatters, and one allowing applications for case management directions which have been agreed by all the parties.
The barristers highlight recent cases from the Court of Appeal and point out that, when the stay is finally lifted, ‘the courts will be dealing with a huge backlog of possession claims, and roofs will have to be put over the heads of the newly dispossessed, not least to protect them from the risks of a second spike’.
