Serving Section 8 or 21 Notice

If a tenant’s payment date is 3^rd of each month then you must serve the notice prior to 3^rd. If notice is not served prior to the 3^rdthen you have to take it from the next month. Dependent upon when the notice is served could mean that your tenant has just under, 3 months in the property before the official notice expiry date.

If notice was served prior to the 3^rd, using the example above, then the date the notice was served would be entered on the Section 21 document. From this point the expiry date entered on the notice would be two calendar months later using the 3^rd as the start date and dated one day prior to the 3^rd which would be the 2^nd of the month.

If we used this method and stated that the tenant’s payment date was 3^rdAugust then notice would need to be served prior to the 3^rd August. Then the expiry date on the notice would be 2^nd October.

If you did not serve notice prior to the 3^rd August and served this after the tenants rent payment date then this would affect the expiry date of the notice. If this was the case then you would date the Section 21 notice for when it was served. The expiry date would then be 2nd November and not the 2^ndOctober as advised using the first example. It is vital that any notice requests are served correctly in order to avoid any delays in arranging possession of your property.

In addition to this the notice period and expiry date may differ, especially if you want to provide your tenant with notice whilst they are on a fixed term contract with a certain rental period. Whichever the situation Letultimate.com can assist you with this.

Just because you have served the required notice on a tenant does not mean that they will vacate the property on the notice expiry date. If a tenant has not vacated the property on this date then you would need to apply to the courts in order to have the notice enforced. Even when this matter gets referred to a court the tenant could get to remain in the property longer. Dependent upon the circumstances surrounding the reason for issuing the notice would depend on how a judge would rule in court.

A judge only has the authority to allow the tenant to remain in a property for a maximum of 12 weeks from the notice expiry date. This would be all down to negotiation when the court hearing takes place and you do not have to agree to this. Again, the outcome of this all depends on the circumstances surrounding the reason for why you have issued notice to a tenant.

Some cases are straight forward as the main reason is simply a landlord requiring their property back as they plan to move back into it themselves or a reason similar to this. It can become quite complicated when the reasons for requiring the property back are due to rent arrears or disputes. Where rent arrears are concerned then you are able to serve a different type of notice which is known as a Section 8 notice. Again, court action may be involved to remove the tenants from the property and once again the dates on the notice provided need to be correct for it to be a valid document.

A section 8 notice can sometimes work quicker than a section 21 notice. A section8 notice is generally served upon a tenant where there are rent arrears involved. With a section 8 a tenant is not guaranteed to have vacated the property when the notice period expires and this matter may need to be referred to a judge in a court of law. You must be aware that a judge could potentially rule in a tenants favor if the tenant makes a satisfactory offer to reduce the rent arrears whilst attending the court hearing.

Then if the tenant agrees to a payment arrangement and the judge has ruled that this is acceptable then the tenant must try and honor this agreement. Unfortunately if a tenant, breaks the arrangement that this matter will have to be referred back to the judge in a court of law. Letultimate.com use a firm of experienced solicitors to act on these types of matters should the need arise and we will guide you through the process should you ever have to complete serving this notice.

Since trading Letultimate.com has not had to fulfill serving either a Section 21 or Section 8 notice that has related to a tenant being evicted for NOT fulfilling their contractual obligations.

It is difficult to quote a timescale involved when serving a section 8 notice as the outcome time could vary depending on if court action is required or not. Therefore, it is important that you allow a minimum of two to three months to get an accurate assessment on when the tenant will be removed from the property