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Landlord Advice UK - Helping Landlords Throughout England, Wales and Scotland

TENANT EVICTION UK

The purpose of this page is to help landlords understand section 21 notices and the route for possession available with the general overview for starting possession proceedings.

Landlords renting residential property should beware that tenants have rights in law which prevent them being evicted or unlawfully harassed by landlords. It is a legal requirement that landlords obtain a possession order from a court before they can start to exercise any right to possession.

The two common exceptions when you may not require a possession order are properties let as a holiday letting, and properties where the landlord is resident in the same property as his tenant. A landlord who evicts a tenant without first obtaining a court order is committing a criminal offence. If the tenancy is an assured shorthold tenancy, then the landlord has a right to possession at the end of the tenancy under section 21 of the Housing Act.

Where the tenancy is a common law or contractual tenancy (e.g. a residential tenancy granted to a company) then a different set of notice requirements will apply. In these cases you will need to serve a notice to quit on the tenant before a possession action can be commenced. There are different rules for service of a notice to quit as they are not the same as the section 21 notice.

Note if the tenants deposit was applicable for protection and you failed to protect it, under law any section 21 notice served will be deemed invalid. In such cases the remedy is to protect the deposit and reserve the notice

If the landlord requires possession at the end of a fixed term tenancy (under section 21), he is required to serve a two months' notice on the tenant. Only when the notice has expired, if the tenant has not left, can you then commence Court possession proceedings.

There are two types of section 21 notices and you should make sure you have served the right notices. If the tenancy agreement is within the fixed term (not yet expired) you will need to serve a standard section 21 notice known as a section 21 notice (1) (b). If the tenancy has expired, you will need to serve a notice which is known as a section 21 periodic notice (4) (a). For avoidance of doubt if you already served a section 21 notice (1) (b) when the tenancy was within the fixed term and then expired you do not then need to reserve a periodic notice.

Warning: Although there is no prescribed form for a section 21 notice you must ensure that the notice complies with the statutory requirements (we advise you download our section 21 notice or purchase a section 21 notice from law stationers). This page is for information only and we do not recommend that any landlord attempts to issue proceedings for possession if they are not legally trained. Should any claim for possession fails the tenant may well be entitled to their legal fees for defending, which the landlord may well be asked to pay. Fees for defending a section 21 or section 8 claims are likely to be several hundred pounds.


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