Landlord & Tenant

Landlords can enforce their right to receive rent, by either commencing possession proceedings in Court or commencing a money claim in Court if you are not looking for a possession Order.

Landlords are also being encouraged to mediate with their tenants who are in rent arrears and attempt to agree a rent deferral or payment plan to enable the tenants to stay in place, whilst gradually repaying any arrears that may have accrued.

If you are a landlord looking for further advice during COVID, please refer to our full article here.

Please refer to the Media Centre for the latest updates on eviction during the pandemic. Alternatively, you can get in touch with one of our Landlord & Tenant solicitors here.

If the tenancy in question is under an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST), you can evict your tenant at the end of their fixed term with a Section 21 notice using form 6A.

If you wish to evict your tenant during the course of the fixed term, you will have to use a Section 8 notice and rely upon one of the grounds set out in the Housing Act 1988. We can advise you of which form to use and why upon enquiry.

You must give the tenant a minimum of 2 months’ notice when using a Section 21 notice.

When using a Section 8 notice, the notice period that you must give the tenant varies depending on the reason you are looking to evict them, however for rent arrears, it is only 14 days, and therefore a much shorter notice period than a Section 21 notice.

Please note that notice periods are currently different under The Coronavirus Act. For the latest guidance, please get in touch with one of our Landlord & Tenant solicitors here.

Yes, from April 1st 2021 EICR checks will be mandatory and legally enforceable for all tenancies. Landlords are required to ensure that an electrical  installation condition report has been completed for all their properties, failure to do so could result in fines up to £30,000.

These fines will be given out by the local authority, who also have the power to; with permission of the tenant, carry out any emergency work on the property if need be. The costs of any work completed by the authority will fall to the landlord.

To find out more about electrical safety checks, read the full article here.

You can evict your tenant yourself, however eviction notices are complex documents and any mistake in drafting them can derail any potential claim in Court to recover possession of your property.

Furthermore, you can be barred from relying upon using a notice if certain prescribed information was not provided to the tenant during the tenancy. We therefore recommend that you speak to a solicitor if you are thinking of evicting a tenant for independent legal advice.

You can read about common mistakes landlords make with Form 6a Section 21 notices in Kerry Hunter’s article, here.

A Section 21 notice is a ‘no fault’ notice, and therefore you do not need to give a reason as to why you want the tenant to leave, or why you want to recover possession of the property.

This is the most commonly used notice and has a required form (Form 6a). This can be used at the end of the fixed term in an AST, or during the rolling period in a Periodic Tenancy.

A Section 8 notice can be used whether or not the fixed term of the tenancy agreement has expired, and you wish to recover possession of the property. This is commonly used where the tenant is in rent arrears, or has demonstrated anti-social behaviour at the property.

Irrespective of the type of notice that you have used, if the tenant does not vacate by the time the notice expires, you will need to issue possession proceedings with Court to get an Order that the tenant must leave. This incurs a Court fee of £355.00.

The timescale for evicting a tenant varies depending upon which notice is used, however the full process usually takes a few months. Frettens can draft the eviction notice for you, apply to Court for a possession Order and represent you at Court if appropriate to take the stress and hassle out of the situation. We can provide you with a cost estimate before you proceed.