The Housing Act 1988 clearly announced that reform of the institutional and legal structure of rented housing provision will be a major component of the Thatcher Government's ongoing reform of the welfare state. Within the public sector, the Act builds on central government efforts to reduce the role of council housing efforts which began with the Housing Act 1980 'right to buy' policy by enabling individual tenants, buildings, or estates to 'opt out' of local authority management and choose government-approved private landlords.1 The assault on local authority landlordism is further reinforced by the creation of government-appointed 'Housing Action Trusts' which will remove entire swathes of public sector housing from council control.2 In the private sector, the introduction of the 'assured' tenancy marks a clear restructuring of the rental contract in the landlord's favour, both by more closely aligning rents to market levels and by enhancing the landlord's capacity to repossess the premises.3 However, there is one aspect of the landlord and tenant relationship which the 1988 Act did not change the remedy of distress for rent. Distress is one of the few self-help remedies still extant within the legal system of England and Wales. Its mechanics are examined more fully below, but in essence it permits many landlords of commercial or residential property, whose tenants fall into arrears, immediately to seize and thereafter sell certain goods found on the demised property to satisfy the debt incurred. Unless the tenancy concerned is a protected tenancy under the Rent Act 1977, or an assured tenancy under the 1988 Act, the landlord need not seek a court order before levying distress.4 Landlords of other private sector tenants, of commercial premises, and in the public residential sector may act without any form of judicial approval. From a landlord's perspective, distress thus has several advantages when compared with the alternative remedies of a rent action or attempt to regain possession through the county court. Since no lawyers need be involved in the process, it can be both instantaneous in effect and extremely cheap.5