Reasonable?

Just a little late night pondering as I watch the Masters (well flicking between the golf and Match of the Day).

I always find it rather depressing having to advise assured shorthold tenants in regard to disrepairs. Why? Well it's nothing new, but I feel I always have to advise the tenant about retaliatory eviction. For more about such this practice read THIS!

Now maybe I'm an idealistic dreamer but why not introduce 'reasonableness' as a defence to a section 21 notice.

Perhaps a tribunal of some sort could rule on whether the landlord has issued the section 21 in retaliation. Perhaps the tenant could go to this tribunal let's say no later than 2 weeks after being served the with the notice. The tribunal could rule that the section 21 had been served in 'retaliation' and that this automatically makes any section 21 fail on the grounds of reasonableness (perhaps also preventing the landlord from using a sec 21 for X amount of time?)

Maybe another option is instead of a tribunal a Judge could look at the evidence presented and merely decide it was not reasonable to grant the landlord possession.

Neither are ideal but something should be done as the excellent report shows and I'm merely pondering. We are ultimately talking about a roof over someones head.