Member

With regard to ground 1A, requiring landlords using this ground to sell, if they need to provide evidence that they have taken initial steps to begin to sell the property, with evidence of a record of engagement from a reputable agent, again, this will be a useful disincentive to abuse. Scottish law already requires the landlord to provide evidence of the intention to sell, and, interestingly, despite a higher threshold than in this Bill for using this eviction ground in Scotland, recent research from Indigo House indicated that in a significant minority of cases—around one in five—the feeling was that this ground might have been misused, because it was found that these properties were still registered on the landlord registration base after the sales ground had been used. It is clear that a higher bar is needed and this is why we feel that both pre-eviction and post-eviction use of the sales ground will be required to provide firm proof that the ground has been used as intended and to prevent abuse.