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Landlords are losing up to £27,500 in rent while waiting more than a year to evict a tenant, new data from Q1 2026 shows.
Property investors in London face losing an average of £27,436 when making a possession application to the courts, and may have to wait for more than a year to remove a tenant.
Landlords in six other areas around London also lose more than an average of £10,000 with each eviction case.
Law firm Legal for Lettings, which compiled the data, says these places are Croydon, where the average loss is £19,124, Romford (-£17,046), Uxbridge (-£14,968), Kingston upon Thames (-£13,513), Chelmsford (-£13,513) and Watford (-£12,890).
The analysis also shows that losses and court delays are inconsistent across England and Wales.
The average loss in the first three months of 2026 was £7,725, with £4,312 the lowest and £27,436 in London the highest.
In the last quarter, 23 courts showed increasing average delays. Peterborough had a three-month increase, bringing their current court wait time to an average of seven months. Derby, Medway, Norwich and Chelmsford all showed a quarterly average increase of a month or more.
Will Eastman, Director at Legal for Lettings, said: "While there are some early signs of improvement in parts of the system, the overall picture remains deeply worrying for landlords.
"In many courts, it can still take the best part of a year to regain possession. These delays aren't just an administrative inconvenience; they represent months of lost income and uncertainty, which the latest figures make very clear.
"Landlords are still facing long waits and mounting arrears before they can resolve even straightforward cases, and this is before the Renters' Rights Act has come into full force. It will be crucial to see how these pressures evolve in the run-up to, and beyond May 1, when the act becomes law, and what further strain this places on the court system."
The findings are published in the Quarterly CourtWatch report, which shares insights and stats from 1,200 possession-related applications each year.
Letting agent trade body Propertymark argues that court delays no longer offer landlords a reliable way to regain possession of a property if a tenant stops paying rent or damages it.
The body's in-house research shows the average time from claim to repossession has risen to over 68 weeks, compared to just over 20 weeks in 2019, and unpaid rents have reached an average of £12,708 across England and Wales and £19,223 in London.
A spokesman said: "Access to justice is a critical part of a functioning private rented sector. Landlords must be confident they can recover their property quickly, when necessary, otherwise confidence in the market will decline."