Section 8 or Section 21 ?

[sbryan]

Would appreciate your advice on the following:-

We have tenants that have not paid any rent since Feb 07. On the grounds that we have not replaced the front door to their property. This request was one of many and it was only when we had carried out various works that we realised this was actually a ploy to withhold rent. But in order to ensure that we were playing fairly we invited the property insurers round to investigate the need for a new door. The insurers confirmed that a new door was not required (the existing door was only 3 years old).

The managing agents did not get the tenants to sign a renewal contract in Nov 2006 (I am still at a loss to understand why) which may invalidate the Section 8 they issued on our behalf in March 2007 when rent had been outstanding for two months. . They did not carry out sufficent checks on the couple (and as absentee landlords we were not in a position to interview them), and the Guarantor was infact one of the tenants. The tenants did not pay anything when threatened with a Section 8 - but advised they would be moving out in May. We held off any legal action (naively expecting the tenants to leave). They did not - another ploy which gave them even more time as we would now need to go through the courts! - We requested assistance from our solicitor who sent them a letter (without referring to Section 21), to either pay up or court proceedings would follow. The tenants ignored this request. The Solicitor then advised us to take the matter to the courts - "a simple 'Accelerated Possession Order' which you could do yourselves". We took his advice but realised that as he had not issued a Section 21 this would now be a requirement (albeit we realised this quite late on in the day) We requested that the courts permit an accelerated possession order and at the same time we sent the tenants a section 21 giving 2 weeks notice instead of the required 8 (We were wrongly advised by the courts advisory service that we could do this). We did however send a letter to the courts explaining how we had been given either bad advice or not sufficient enough advice to move things forward hence the Section 21 was a shorter notice period as plenty had already been served. The Courts notified us that the tenants had 14 days to lodge an appeal - which led me to believe that our request was acceptable. But three weeks later we called the courts to check progress and learnt that the case had been referred to the District Judge who ruled that no discretion would be permited to acelerate the possession order - (i.e. our Section 21 was invalid - as 8 weeks are the required notice). Furthermore the tenants had provided their defence ... that they were 'withholding' the rent until a new door was provided! We are loathed to go back and give the tenants an extra two months on top of the 6 months they have already had. Could the Section 8 be used in order to evict? Or should we put on a new door and demand back rent!? Would this in anyway further our case to get these leeches out of our property?

[Simon Dewsberry]

What a mess !

Put a debt collector on to the debt immediately .....see my other posts on this topic you may need to search around the threads a bit AND NEVER ALLOW A SITUATION TO GO ON FOR THIS LONG !!!

Set up late payment fees in ast and act on them immediately that payments are late ..

For this one inform T of DC involvement and negotiate a discount for immediate evacuation (with s21/s8 and court action progressing in background as back up )

You have learnt a big lesson in having your trousers pulled down .....now sharpen up and dont put up with any more of it ...you are running a business ......not a charity ....(no offence intended!)

Simon

[Melboy]

Yes, Fern a hard lesson for you regarding some Tenants.

Unfortunately you (or your Agents) have allowed the Tenants to have the upper hand in a useless and pointless negotiation where they are stitching you up big time.

Most AST contracts have a clear clause in them which states that rent money cannot be withheld from the Landlord for ongoing property repairs.

Our useless legal system can be a waste a time in cases like this and I would agree, as rodent suggested, get the DC's on the case right now!..........and check your contract to see re-repairs etc.

Mel.

[laverda]

I feel you have been very badly advised by agents court & solicitors etc not serving the proper documents at the appropriate time and you have let them stay far to long. They cannot withold rent demanding repairs are done that is a seperate issue . Tenants are taking the P**s big time. Through experience I can see the outcome of this . you will have to serve the corect forms either a section 8 or section 21 followed by a warant for possesion and a balif to evict them this will get your property back but needs to be done corectly to be valid and will be costs involved . Tenants will probably stay until the last then will leave ,Leaving house in a mess and giving no forwarding address then you have to try to locate them to serve court papers for rent arrears difficult? You have to be one step ahead to try and monitor there movements get as much info as possible ie employers car reg and anything you can so if they do dissapear you can try and locate them. I feel you have learnt the hard way

[pugsy]

I think a section 8 at this point and application for a court date (£150 fee) will achieve a possesion order, plus money order for arrears. A section 21 will achieve possession order, then you will need to submit to the courts for a separate claim for arrears and costs. I really do sympathise, but act quickly and you can have your property back in 2 1/2 months time, earlier if the DC's can put pressure on, or incentify them to leave. Your biggest mistake here would be to hope for the best. In an arrears situation, always expect the worst case scenario and jump on rental late payments with section 8 at the right moment. Alternatively with your next tenant, serve a section 21 with the ast just to protect you. Landlordzone.co.uk and letlink may have further info for you, the NLA will definatley be able to advise you specifically on what to do next, (£70 joining fee for the year). Also put a post on singingpig.co.uk

MEMBERS, forgetting hindsight for a minute, WHAT SECTION NOTICE DO YOU RECOMMEND THEY SERVE RIGHT NOW?

[SPEEDTWIN]

If the section 8 has already been served in march surely the L/L can apply for a court hearing now. Also serve a SECTION 21 now as back up.

[Selkirk]

Good luck with that, I really feel for you having been down this road somewhat myself, all good advice and credit to those who've responded.

Is there a national register that records these types of incidents with tenants? I looked on singingpig.co.uk but couldn't find anything. Something like this could form part of the check and may go toward preventing, as best we can, these people doing it to someone else - which they will obviously try to do.

Prehaps if their passport number and name or something was listed and a record of the court case number.

I'm now going to check back two landlords, it could be a case that the last landlord found them to be an excellent tenant and they have built up some credit but what about the landlord before that?.

cheers

[GPEL]

Rent payment obligations and repair disputes are entirely separate and one doesn't depend on the other. The tenant should follow the repair dispute protocol if they have repair issues. Them witholding rent is typical smoke & mirrors employed to divert from the real reason which is that they either cannot or do not want to pay the rent and are looking for excuses to justify themselves.