Letting agents warned: 'Ensure eviction notices are correctly served'

By Graham Norwood

Agents are being warned to ensure they serve eviction notices correctly as the ‘peak eviction’ summer period arrives.

Specialist tenant referencing service Rent4sure says particular attention should be paid to Section 8 and Section 21 notices, which are two of the most frequent and complicated.

A Section 8 notice can be served for a breach of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement and is most commonly used to tackle rent arrears.

“A landlord or their agent should serve a Section 8 notice under grounds 8, 10 and 11 as soon as the tenant defaults on two months of rent arrears,” explains Luke Burton, Rent4sure’s sales and marketing director.

“This differs slightly when the rent is paid weekly, or quarterly and in some instances, you may have to wait for a further period before serving a Section 8 notice under the mandatory ground 8.”

He says that if rent is paid weekly or fortnightly, eight weeks’ rent must be due before a Section 8 notice can be served.

For quarterly rent payments, at least one quarter’s worth of rent must be at least three months in arrears.

“If the rent is paid yearly, at least three months’ rent must be three months in arrears” adds Burton.

A Section 21 notice, meanwhile, should only be served at the end of a fixed term or in line with an agreed break clause within the tenancy agreement. A Section 21 should be served giving the tenant two months’ notice.

“However, if the tenancy commenced prior to October 1 2015 and no new term has been entered into post that date, notice can be served at any time,” says Burton.

He explains that if the tenancy commenced after October 1 2015, agents are not permitted to serve a Section 21 notice until after the first four months of the tenancy have lapsed.


A new government Form 6A – which is only valid for six months from the date of issue - must be used for all tenancies commencing after this date including any renewals.

Rent4sure says it is good practice to serve these notices towards the end of the term to ensure that if possession proceedings become necessary, the notice is still valid.

In the instance that a tenancy began before October 2015 but a renewal has been granted since that date, the Form 6A must still be used.

The rule which states Section 21 notices cannot be served for the first four months of the tenancy only applies from the date of the first agreement.

“However, these will also only be valid for a period of six months from the date they are issued on the tenant,” explains Burton.

“Therefore, it would be good practice to diarise to serve these a few months before the end of the term to ensure the notice remains valid if the tenant fails to vacate and proceedings do become necessary.”

https://www.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2017/5/agents-told-ensure-eviction-notices-are-correctly-served

The Guardian view on house prices: the government lacks the political will to fix the broken market

It has taken only tentative steps towards reforming the land market and improving tenants’ rights. Young people without family wealth will pay the price

Home ownership offers a stability and financial security simply unavailable to those who rent. Photograph: Alamy

If the price of milk had risen in line with average house prices over the past 40 years, consumers would now be shelling out more than £10 for a four-pint carton: a sobering reminder of just how broken Britain’s housing market is. With price increases like these, it is little surprise the number of first-time buyers relying on family loans is now at a historic high, according to new research from the Social Mobility Commission: one in three rely on family help, and the proportion of 25- to 29-year-olds who own their home has almost halved since 1990.

A world where a growing proportion of young people can only afford to buy a home with family support makes a mockery of equal opportunity. Home ownership matters in Britain: yes, as oft remarked, it is a cultural aspiration; but one that is underpinned by rational financial interests. Home ownership provides a stability and financial security simply unavailable to those who rent, thanks to house price growth that benefits owners but drives up rents, and our very weak framework of tenants’ rights.

The success of government attempts to improve housing policy should be judged by a simple indicator: price. For decades, governments have rolled out policies aimed at improving affordability and helping people to get on the ladder, but at the same time long-term house price growth has far outpaced any increase in wages. What’s gone wrong?

The biggest problem is a land market that serves landowners and developers at the expense of buyers. Land is a fixed commodity and a public good: its sale should be highly regulated. Yet our planning system delivers huge windfall gains to landowners in areas of high demand: giving agricultural land residential planning status increases its value on average by a factor of 328. Landowners sell to developers offering the highest price, who maximise profit by slowly releasing houses on to the market to fuel further price growth, skimping on build quality and affordable housing.

This is a distortion relatively easily fixed. As Shelter has argued, local authorities and public development corporations should be given the power to buy undeveloped land based on its existing value: a power widely used across much of Europe. They could then sell land on to developers who commit to building affordable housing of better quality for quick release. This should be accompanied by tax reform – council tax is a hugely regressive property tax based on property values from 1990 – and stronger rights for tenants in the private rented sector, including caps on rent rises and longer-term minimum tenancies of at least five years.

This package of reforms would slow house price growth while increasing security for renters. But it is one the government shied away from in its recent white paper: it took only the most tentative of steps towards land market reform and improving tenants’ rights. Instead it has lifted regulations on minimum home sizes, paving the way for a flurry of tiny “rabbit hutch” homes to come on to the market. It is focusing the bulk of its political capital on deregulatory planning reforms, unlikely to have much impact given that planning permission has already been granted for almost half a million homes yet to be built.

The problem is not a lack of solutions, but a lack of political will. This is an area where ministers fear their own success. What government truly wants to preside over years of flatlining house prices at the expense of relatively affluent homeowners in the south-east? Almost 10 years after the financial crisis, economic growth remains too fuelled by the consumer debt enabled by rising house prices, and too little by long-term investment. And so the charade continues: politicians tout over-ambitious house building targets while tinkering at the margins, avoiding the market intervention needed to truly put a brake on price growth. It is young people without family wealth who will pay the price.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/the-guardian-view-on-house-prices-the-government-lacks-the-political-will-to-fix-the-broken-market

Landlord hit with £25k fine for safety failings

The owner of a house in Colindale, north London, let out to tenants in a dangerous condition has been fined £25,000.

Habib Khan, of Charlton Road, Harlesden, is the latest in a string of landlords to be taken to court by Barnet Council which has brought prosecutions totalling more than £220,000 in court costs and fines this year alone, as part of wider efforts to clampdown on unlicensed landlords.

Khan, who received around £20,000 a year in rent from the property on Varley Parade in Colindale, was convicted in his absence at Willesden Magistrates Court for putting the lives of the tenants at risk because the property was so unsafe.

The council’s environmental health officers said that the five bedroom house did not have smoke detectors or flame-resistant doors nor did it have a gas safety certificate or electrical test certificate.

A council spokesman said: “The consequences of a fire could have been catastrophic. Mr Khan’s only response to the investigation was to evict two tenants so the house was no longer covered by licensing arrangements.”

Last month, Willesden magistrates handed out fines totalling £120,000 to the owners of a property comprising ten studio flats in Golders Green after it was found the lives of up to 20 tenants were at risk.

The property, on Golders Green Road, had been under a prohibition notice preventing it from being let - but tenants were still being charged around £1,150 per calendar month.

A council spokesman said: “Following a complaint from a tenant of one of the dwellings, our environmental health team found the accommodation to be in a very poor condition and badly managed.

“They found that very serious harm would have been likely if a fire had started at the property – with 10 to 20 people potentially losing their lives.

“The magistrates said the tenants’ financial situation had left them vulnerable.”

https://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2016/6/landlords-hit-with-25k-for-safety-failings