County court judges have begun offering landlords a way out of nightmare extreme rent arrears cases by granting increasing numbers of them ‘leave to transfer’ to the High Court.

Although more expensive, landlords can use this legal process to give tenants 14 days’ notice and avoid the huge ‘bottle neck’ delays currently faced by them when trying to evict through the county court system.

Landlords must firstly have a possession hearing request going through a county court but, if it has become stuck, apply for a leave to transfer – which normally is difficult to obtain.

“Judges are becoming aware that in some cases where tenants have obviously been avoiding paying rent, often from well before the pandemic started, something needs to be done to expedite an eviction and return possession to the landlord,” said Paul Shamplina from evictions firm Landlord Action. He added: “We’ve been seeing more and more of our applications for ‘leave to transfer’ being approved by judges when concerning these more extreme cases – it’s one of the few remaining paths open for desperate landlords at the moment under the current restrictions.”