Over the last few weeks i have
seen a startling increase in the number of tenants coming to me with notices
given to them by their landlord which are actually invalid and Ihave had the
task of writing to all of these landlords to tell them they will now have to
serve another 2 months notice.
The problem is, these landlord
seem to think all they need to do is write their tenant a short letter asking
them to leave in 2 months time......WRONG
if your tenant is on an Assured
Shorthold tenancy then you need to serve the correct notice which in the
absence of a breach of tenancy will be a section 21 notice.
The reason these notices are
invalid is because nowhere in them does it state that possession is required
under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.
The section number and Act are
important because if you need to apply to the court for possession the judge
will know which grounds, why and what procedure should have been followed in
order for the judge to make an order of possession or in some cases to not
grant an order at all.
So in these cases I have written
to the landlord explaining the error and advising that if they still wish the tenant to leave, then they will
need to serve a valid section 21 notice giving 2 clear months notice to vacate
from the date the notice is given, to help further I also include a template
Section 21 notice so they can see what it needs to contain.
I admit that my letters have not
always met with the gratitude I would have expected and on several occasions I
have received rather abusive phone calls from these landlords
Serving a section 21 is basic
landlord admin and should not be proving such a problem, I can understand that
landlords may wish to keep outgoings low but cutting out the agent, but in
these cases it may actually end up costing a landlord much more, if their
tenant allows them to go to court only for the possession claim to be thrown
out and the landlord is left to pay the court fee, which I am sure would be
much higher than the cost of an agent or membership to one of the many Landlord
associations around the country that will have a template Section 21 notice
ready for you to just fill in the blanks.
So come on Landlords, get your
finger out and do your research and PLEASE serve your notices correctly
I refer to an article by Paul
Shamplina which revealed over 62% of landlord notices are incorrect.
