Almost daily, I meet prospective landlords who tell me they have been warned against renting a property in Scotland. The message is strikingly consistent: tenants regularly stop paying rent, refuse to leave, and landlords face lengthy, stressful eviction battles with little protection.
The impression is that Scotland's PRS has become un-investable, a sector dominated by problematic tenants and powerless landlords. The facts tell a very different story.
Statistics from Scotland's First-tier Tribunal (FTT), which deals with all residential tenancy disputes and eviction applications, show that during 2023/2024 it handled 5,748 residential tenancy cases. That represents around 1.7% of Scotland's estimated 330,000 privately rented households.
Of those cases, 3,203 related to eviction proceedings. Put another way, only 0.9% of Scotland's private rented tenancies result in an eviction application being raised over the course of 1 year.
Even that figure overstates the scale of the issue. Not every application ends with a tenant being evicted. Many cases are resolved before an eviction order is granted, with tenants leaving voluntarily, repayment agreements being reached or circumstances changing before the process concludes. The proportion of tenancies that ultimately end in eviction is therefore below 0.9%.
While detailed data showing which areas or market sectors experience the highest eviction rates is limited, one fact is undeniable: over 99% of private tenancies in Scotland do not result in eviction proceedings at all.
That statistic stands in stark contrast to the narrative surrounding Scotland's rental market.
The explanation is simple. Bad news travels fast; good news rarely does. A relatively small number of difficult cases receive significant attention, creating the impression they are the norm. Over time, repeated anecdotes have distorted public perception to the point where many people with no direct experience of being a landlord confidently describe Scotland as an excessively risky place to be a landlord.
That perception has real consequences. It discourages investment, persuades existing landlords to leave the sector and reduces the supply of homes available to rent. At a time when Scotland faces an acute housing shortage, undermining confidence in the PRS benefits nobody, not landlords, letting agents or, most importantly, tenants.
Perhaps most unfairly, it also paints an inaccurate and unfair picture of Scottish tenants. The overwhelming majority pay their rent, look after their homes and simply want a secure, stable place to live. The tribunal statistics strongly support that reality.
Scotland needs robust and balanced protections for tenants, but public debate should be guided by evidence rather than anecdote. The First-tier Tribunal's own figures provide a welcome reminder that, despite the prevailing narrative, the overwhelming majority of tenancies in Scotland operate exactly as they should, quietly, successfully and without dispute.