With all the focus in recent weeks on duck ponds and moats, tudor beams and servants’ quarters, you might be forgiven for forgetting that we are smack bang in the middle of a recession. For those at the sharp end however, those who are losing their livelihoods and homes, there is no escaping the tough times we face.

Imagine returning home from work to find the lock to your front door has been changed, you are unable to access your belongings and you have nowhere to go. Or there is a knock at your door and you find yourself being evicted by the bailiffs without even enough time to get your essential medication. These are the stories we have been hearing.

You might think that this could never happen to you, that only those steeped in debt or unable to pay their mortgages would find themselves facing this kind of nightmare. However, as highlighted in a recent Progress article http://archive.progressonline.org.uk/Magazine/article.asp?a=4087, thousands of people who have done nothing wrong, who may be completely unaware that there is any problem at all are finding themselves in just these situations because their landlord has not been paying his mortgage.

As things stand at the moment, private tenants, through no fault of their own, can effectively be thrown out of their homes with little or no notice if their landlord is repossessed. Until recently however, government repossession policy was only focused on helping owner occupiers. That’s why Crisis. along with Citizens Advice, Shelter and CIH. has been campaigning for protection for private tenants.

Private tenants have limited rights as it is with landlords able to end a tenancy with only two months notice. That two month notice period is therefore crucial to allow tenants a breathing space to look for another home. Yet where a mortgage lender takes possession action against a defaulting landlord, the tenant can lose even these basic rights.

Not only is there a manifest injustice in people who have played by the rules and paid their rent regularly having such limited rights but it can also be a deeply distressing and worrying experience for the people involved. What’s more, with no time to find somewhere else to live, people can be left facing homelessness.

That’s why we have been calling on the government to take urgent action to protect the three million households who rent privately and to ensure that private tenants do not become the next victims of the repossession crisis.

Last year we started hearing of cases of tenants in this situation being evicted. It became clear that there was a real problem when amongst the wider repossession statistics, we noticed that buy-to-let repossessions had doubled. Teaming up with other agencies, the problem became clearer as between us we were hearing of a big increase in tenants bearing the impact of their landlord defaulting, with thousands of people facing problems. We started to worry that we could be facing a real homelessness crisis.

At the time however, government and the media were very much focused on helping owner occupiers who faced repossession. So we started raising the issue with MPs and ministers and civil servants. Questions were asked in parliament. An Early Day Motion was tabled which has to date been signed by well over 100 MPs. The story was picked up by media across the networks and Margaret Beckett was forced from her sick bed to respond on the Today programme.

And finally government really started to listen and to act. Following discussions with us and other key stakeholders, ministers have recently announced that they plan to introduce legislation to offer protection to private tenants so that no one faces losing their home with little or no notice.

The next stage for us is making sure that this issue is not forgotten over the summer recess, that this does not become a ‘nice to do’ but remains on the government’s priority list. We will continue to campaign for legislation to be introduced as swiftly as possible. We must ensure that this important issue remains in the spotlight and that government follows through on its commitment with action to protect these victims of the recession.