Landlord illegally entered flat and tried to evict tenant in hospital with coronavirus

Arriving back at his flat, having spent a fortnight in hospital with coronavirus, Victor Ngo was not expecting things to be easy.

A self-employed actor, the Malaysian national knew that the lockdown had shut off his sources of income and, despite the emergency, his work visa left him with no recourse to public funds so he couldn’t claim universal credit.

The uneasy choice between paying for food or rent was looming, he says.

What he did not expect when he got back to his flat in Swiss Cottage, however, was to find a pile of empty cardboard boxes and a few rolls of tape.

He had emailed his landlord while he was unwell to ask them to suspend his rent while he was unable to work.

“I said that I’ve lost my job, I have no income, I’m not even in my home and asked the landlord if they could please show some compassion and please suspend my rent,” Mr Ngo tells The Independent.

“They told me I had to pay as soon as possible or they would take the money out of my deposit and they illegally entered my flat without telling me.”

open image in gallery

After recovering from Covid-19, he returned to his flat to ensure he would not be made homeless but, like thousands of renters in the UK, he faces the fear of being kicked out within weeks when a suspension of eviction proceedings comes to an end.

Housing charity Shelter has warned that ending the suspension on evictions will “unleash a wave of homelessness” that risks overwhelming local authorities and causing needless suffering unless renters are protected.

While homeowners, who are relatively wealthier and more financially secure than renters, have been allowed to not pay their mortgage for up to six months until the end of October, tenants must negotiate any rent holiday or reduction with their landlord.

Many landlords have not obliged, meaning tenants are racking up arrears that they will be unable to pay back.

“Private renting is deeply unstable and expensive at the best of times,” says Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter. “Add the Covid-19 crisis into the mix, which has cost many renters their jobs or at least chunks of their income, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

“We’re hearing from renters every day who’ve fallen behind on their rent and are now terrified they will lose their home when the eviction ban lifts in a few short weeks.

“Under the existing system, renters with arrears are often automatically evicted – even if they’ve lost their job, are waiting for benefit payments, and doing everything they can to clear the debt. The ban is all that’s stopping those evictions from going ahead.”

Shelter is urging the government to act urgently to give judges extra powers to prevent renters from losing their homes because of coronavirus.

Government figures released last week suggest that local authorities were already struggling to deal with rehousing homeless families before the coronavirus crisis.

They show that half of all households found to be homeless by their local council left the system without being helped to secure a home. Shelter believes councils are unlikely to be able to cope with a further wave of evicted tenants who find themselves in need of support.

Mr Ngo’s landlord backed down after the London Renters Union sent a letter outlining why entering a property without permission is illegal and stating that the eviction notice was invalid.

But his situation indicates that the minimal support for renters that has been introduced during the pandemic may not be adequate protection from a minority of landlords who flout the rules.​

“Soon I am thinking I will have to choose between food and rent. I know a lot of other people are like me. You can only have one [or the other],” he says.

When questioned by MPs on Wednesday about the estimated 100,000 households with no recourse to public funds, Boris Johnson appeared to be unaware that the immigration status existed. The prime minister said he would look into the issue.

Thousands of other tenants have also been left struggling to make ends meet because they have fallen through the cracks of government support. The newly self-employed cannot claim under a government scheme to cover lost income.

A single person with no children who loses their job and claims universal credit will see their income slashed by 70 per cent, on average, according to calculations by the Resolution Foundation. Despite increases to basic benefit payments during the crisis, the UK’s allowances remain among the least generous in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people are forecast to lose their jobs and have to claim universal credit as the government winds down its furlough scheme by the end of October.

“Currently thousands of people in this situation are trapped with no way to weather the storm of Covid-19,” says Polly Neate.

“To stop them falling into serious debt and becoming homeless, the government must temporarily lift restrictions on who can apply for emergency help both in terms of universal credit and homelessness help from councils.

“No one should have to experience the trauma of homelessness, let alone while this global pandemic rages on.”

Mr Ngo is asking for two things from the government: to suspend evictions for a longer period while he and other tenants get back on their feet, and to temporarily suspend rent payments.

“I think some countries have done that in Europe,” he says. “It’s common sense I would say because our work will not resume immediately, we are still suffering financially, how are we going to pay this?”

A rent suspension is likely to come up against stiff resistance from landlords and their lobbyists.

Some buy-to-let landlords have been able to apply for a mortgage holiday, which campaigners say they should pass on to their tenants. But others have argued that they are running businesses which need rental income to survive.

A recent poll by the National Residential Landlords Association found that 54 per cent of landlords have experienced some combination of rent payment problems or unanticipated periods when properties have been empty.

Some 44 per cent of 4,500 respondents says they had received a request for help from tenants, and 90 per cent claimed they had responded positively.

Mr Ngo’s landlord did not respond to a request for comment.