Trend report: evictions for anti-social behaviour begin to increase

Harrison Box, policy officer at community safety organisation Resolve, says the organisation’s members report that ASB centred on the home – such as cuckooing (where criminals take over the home of a vulnerable person) and nuisance neighbours – have become “a lot more prevalent”. He speculates that this might be a result of people going out less because of concerns about the cost of living.

Similarly, ASB linked to poverty – such as organised begging – has become more prevalent over the years. The ‘residualisation’ of social housing – whereby social housing has tended to be allocated to the most disadvantaged people as it becomes scarcer – has meant more vulnerable tenants who are more likely to be victims of ASB, or to be perpetrators if they have a mental illness or substance misuse issues.

Mosscare St Vincents (MSV), which has 9,000 properties in the North West, including in some very deprived parts of Manchester, has seen rises in ASB and changes in anti-social activities.

Matt Jones, executive director – customers, says ASB levels rose over the two years of the pandemic by 35 per cent and have continued to rise at around five to seven per cent a year. The rise during the pandemic was partly down to people being in their homes more in difficult circumstances.

While 10 or 20 years ago, he recalls that “gangs of youths terrorising neighbourhoods” was an issue, now incidents are more focused on the home. Noise-related incidents, verbal abuse, threats and neighbour disputes are the most common forms of ASB, now accounting for about 65 to 70 per cent of reports to MSV.

Mr Jones wonders whether a combination of economic and social factors have contributed to the rise in cases and change in their nature, but it is difficult to pin down the reasons.

“It’s only the people with the highest needs who were being rehoused because of the housing shortage,” Mr Jones says. Similarly, cutbacks to other services such as social care, mental health services and the police mean people, including those experiencing mental illness, are not getting the help they need.

He also wonders whether there have been other social changes. “Have we seen changes where people are both simultaneously less respectful and less tolerant?” he asks.

Formal legal action forms about 10 per cent of the 75 interventions MSV makes each quarter, including seven to 10 injunctions, plus other measures such as closure orders. It usually makes one to two evictions per year, although it has made none so far this year.

MSV is considering setting up an in-house legal team. “Our legal costs have gone through the roof on ASB. I think there’s three reasons for that. One is that I think some of the cases are just inherently more complex. Increasingly, defendants are contesting proceedings. So where they might have accepted an undertaking, for example, arising from an emergency injunction application, they’re not doing so now. Also, constant adjournments at court and the backlogs at court add to our legal cost base.”

Gaps in the data

Data on ASB is patchy. “The way data is recorded varies a lot between who’s reporting it, and oftentimes agencies don’t share that data, so local authorities don’t share it with the police, and police don’t share it with housing providers,” Mr Box says. “The real picture of anti-social behaviour is quite elusive.”

A survey by the Local Government Association and Resolve found 80 per cent of councils said sharing information between stakeholders causes delays in their investigations and in taking action against perpetrators to some extent.

Similarly, police forces do not all record and report ASB in the same way. The definition of ASB in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 is conduct that has caused or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to others – so it is broad and open to interpretation.

Several new pieces of legislation will have effects – both positive and negative – on addressing various kinds of anti-social behaviour.

A key one is the Crime and Policing Bill, which is going through the House of Lords. The wide range of powers includes the launch of respect orders, which allow local authorities and the police to place restrictions on people who commit ASB with a criminal sanction on breach. The bill also allows the police to seize e-bikes that are being used anti-socially without a warning, and it bans cuckooing.

The Renters’ Rights Act may make it harder to tackle ASB. It abolishes Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, which landlords have used to deal with persistent ASB as it is generally quicker than eviction under the discretionary grounds of Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988. This is because it does not involve a court hearing, at a time when there are huge court backlogs.

Mr Box says there are several difficulties getting possession under the discretionary grounds in Section 8. He says: “Causing a ‘nuisance’ can be open to interpretation, and what one deems as anti-social behaviour, another may not. Judges also need to weigh up the impact of making a tenant potentially homeless, so it is a balancing act against protecting the neighbourhood and community, and housing stability for the individual.”

Additionally, the bill – unlike the previous version introduced under the Conservative government – does not have a contingency to review court performance and backlogs, Mr Box says.

The figures for evictions granted under discretionary grounds for ASB may also be artificially lowered by long waits for court cases to be heard. “We’ve had members waiting up to a year for orders for possession,” Mr Box says. “Anti-social behaviour is a precursor to more serious crime, so they’re waiting a year for their injunction to pass, and in that time, it escalates. So we see low-level anti-social behaviour that eventually ends up becoming a lot worse.”

The Victims and Courts Bill also has implications for social landlords because the Victims Commissioner can ask housing associations and local authorities for information such as explaining how they are dealing with ASB cases.