Ban on high street evictions extended until the autumn

The evictions moratorium was extended today from June 30 until the end of September. The government also published a code of practice designed to ease increasingly fraught negotiations between high street tenants and landlords facing increased pressure due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The next quarterly rent day falls on Wednesday, when retail and high street food and beverage businesses are required to pay for the third quarter’s rent.

However, with many retail businesses having only reopened a few high street stores on Monday, and restaurants and pubs still shuttered, landlords are expecting takings to be minimal.

Across the various high street sectors, only half of the rent due on the quarter day in March was actually paid.

Communities secretary Robert Jenrick said the government was extending measures to help struggling high street businesses over the summer.

Jenrick said he hoped the new code of conduct would “help unlock conversations on rent and future payments whilst ensuring best practice is displayed across the board as we confront the challenges of this pandemic”.

The evictions ban prevents landlords from taking legal actions against tenants who haven’t paid their rent and also prohibits them from sending statutory winding-up demands.

Property bodies such as the British Property Federation had warned when the ban was originally introduced in April that it could end up leaving many landlords in danger of breaching banking covenants while alleviating the issues being faced by tenants.

British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said the lockdown had created a “gaping hole” in retailer’s finances and warned the code did not provide solutions for businesses “simply unable to pay what is demanded”.

“Without further action,” she warned, “both retailers and landlords remain in a precarious situation that could lead to substantial numbers of redundancies as soon as tenant protections expire.”