The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 (PFEA) means that for most occupiers a court order is needed to evict you from your home. However some occupiers are excluded. Excluded occupiers can be evicted without a court order once their tenancy or licence to occupy has been brought to an end. The landlord needs to give notice to end a periodic tenancy or licence, or to end a fixed term early using a break clause or forfeiture clause.
S.3A of PFEA sets out the following categories of excluded occupier:
- people sharing accommodation with a resident landlord
- former trespassers granted temporary rights to occupy eg where a landlord discovers a squatter in their premises and allows the squatter to stay on a temporary basis, paying a weekly fee or rent until the landlord needs possession
- people renting holiday lets ie this covers tenancies and licences that are genuinely granted for the duration of a holiday
- people occupying accommodation rent free – this could include situations where accommodation is provided by relatives.
- asylum seekers in UKVI accommodation
- licensees in public sector hostels. A hostel means a building in which the accommodation provided is not separate and self-contained and either board and/or facilities for the preparation of food is provided for residents (s.622 Housing Act 1985)
- people with no right to rent where the Home Office has served notice (s.33D(2) Immigration Act 2014).
Another category of excluded occupier is:
- homeless applicants if they have been granted a licence to occupy interim accommodation or accommodation under the duty to applicants found intentionally homeless.
Homeless applicants are not excluded by s.3A PFEA but have been excluded the courts in various cases.
*This blog entry was helped by Shelter Legal.
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