Dozens of families living in the private rented sector in Kent are facing the risk of losing their homes after receiving eviction notices from one of Britain’s most controversial landlords.
It is being widely reported that Fergus Wilson has given 90 households in Ashford just two months to leave their homes, after he decided to sell his portfolio of several hundred properties. Wilson started sending out the “no fault” Section 21 eviction notices in mid January.
Wilson and his wife Judith built up a portfolio of 700 homes across Kent. In recent years the couple have courted controversy by refusing to let houses to people who cook curry and in the long time taken to carry out repairs to tenanted properties.
Much of their portfolio is located in or around Ashford, where the council has a waiting list of about 1,500 households.
Evictions from private rentals are now the cause of over a quarter of the reported cases of homelessness. Last year the Government proposed the possibility of introducing three-year tenancies, to give people greater security, but it has not acted on this yet.
By Patrick Mooney, editor