Further details have emerged of how courts will deal with housing possession cases when they resume next week. Possession proceedings have been suspended since March to protect private and social renters, and those with mortgages and licences covered by the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 during the Covid-19 crisis.

Simon Mullings, a housing solicitor at Edwards Duthie Shamash, said nothing much is likely to happen on Monday. Court staff will begin looking at the backlog of cases and new ones coming through, and list them subject to rules and directions currently being drawn up.

Mullings told the Young Lawyers Making Change festival this week that landlords with cases in the backlog will have to write to the court with a reactivation notice. Their case could eventually be struck out if they don’t…