As a Landlord the last thing you want to be told is that you cannot evict a bad paying tenant for 6 months, right? So how do you feel when I tell you that this is now the notice period you need to give your tenant, in order to evict them?
Prior to Covid-19, the eviction notice on a Section 21 was two months, this was increased to 3 months during lockdown and has now been extended to 6 months. This has come as a huge blow for many of us, as we believed (and thoroughly hoped) that we would be getting back to normal at the end of September.
Section 8 eviction notices and Section 21 (no fault) eviction notices both now have a six month notice period. The government have decided to increase the notice period to prevent making a bad situation worse, which could be the case if a large number of evictions take place over the winter months. This new legislation became law on the 29th of August 2020, therefore any notice which is served prior to the 29th of August will still require the 3-month notice period.
There has been some confusion regarding the Deregulation Act 2015, of which Section 36 states that once a Section 21 is issued it has a life span of six months for which you can start Court proceedings. This is now, of course, contradictory due to 6 months’ notice period being required; you wouldn’t be able to commence Court proceedings in the 6-month time frame, which would result in the Section 21 being invalid! The Deregulation Act has now been adjusted to allow 10 months for Court proceedings to commence; this gives a four month window of opportunity to start proceedings once the full notice has been served; this is the same window of opportunity as existed prior to Covid.
A Form 6A is used when serving a Section 21 eviction notice, these forms have now been adjusted to reflect the change in notice period. It is vital that the new form is used when issuing a Section 21. Without the most up to date form, the Section 21 would be deemed invalid and a new Form 6A would have to be reissued. The most up to date forms can be downloaded from the Housing Ministry website.
Please remember that if an eviction notice was served just prior to the 29th of August you may need to check the rules to ensure that the notice was served correctly and officially before the 29th of August, for example; if the Form 6A was posted first class you must allow two working days before the notice can be deemed as served, therefore if the notice was served on Thursday the 27th of August, this would not be deemed served until after the 29th of August (the 29th of August is a Saturday, and therefore not a working day); in this situation a 6 month notice period would be required.
Civil Procedure Rules, Section 6.26 advises when we can deem a Form 6A as served; this is adhered to across all courts in England and Wales, however terms in Tenancy Agreements take priority; for example; under Civil Procedure Rules, if an email is served before 4:30pm, it is classed as being served the same day as it was issued, however; if the tenancy agreement states something different, then this must take priority.
Section 8 eviction notices do have different expiry dates for different grounds of default, for example criminal offences may be given two weeks’ notice and in instances like these, Section 8s can still be served in line with the 2 weeks’ notice. If you are serving a Section 8 for rent arrears, then any rent arrears up to 6 months must be given six months’ notice. If the tenants are already in six months’ rent arrears, then four weeks’ notice can be given. Section 8s now have a 12-month life span; if the notice is not used to evict the tenant in the 12 month period, another Section 8 will need to be served and the process will start from the beginning.
The new eviction rules regarding Section 21 and Section 8 are now in place until at least the 31st of March 2021, so all Section 21’s and those Section 8’s that are eligible will need to be served with six months’ notice. If the six month period comes to an end and the tenant has not vacated the property, Court proceedings would be required to evict the tenant.
Currently, the Courts are still in lockdown until at least the 20th of September 2020; possession cases and evictions, including appeals, are not taking place. This is a huge blow and is resulting in continuing hardship for landlords; some of whom may be up to 12 months in rent arrears with tenants they can’t evict!
It is believed that there is currently a backlog of up to 62,000 cases needing to be seen in Court. A large number of these cases are in the large urban areas. Courts called “Nightingale Courts” have been set up to help out with this backlog and they are primarily looking at urgent family cases and criminal cases. There is also a Working Party looking at how we can prioritise cases; at present, priority is being given to those with tenants in rent arrears which have now hit the 12 month mark and tenants where anti-social behaviour is an issue.
The Court environment itself is going to see a huge change when they reopen. Prior to Covid-19, the Courts were able to see around 8 – 10 cases every hour. Due to Covid-related restrictions, it is impossible to accommodate such a large number of people and still implement social distancing practices, therefore it is believed that Courts will be dealing with far fewer cases; potentially just two or three an hour! This is still being decided on by the Working Party, so for now, watch this space!
Although the situation appears on tenterhooks right now, if you do need to evict a tenant, the advice would be to issue Court proceedings as soon as possible. Remember, the Landlord or a qualified person (a Solicitor) needs to fill in the paperwork for the Court; if the paperwork is filled in incorrectly this would have to be done again and yes, you guessed it, you would need to start from scratch!
I hope that helps.
If you have any queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Gemma from Flying Keys;
T: 07737961711
