Section 21 Notices.

A Section 21 notice is commonly referred to as a ‘no-fault eviction’ as the landlord will not need to provide a reason for eviction. However, a landlord can only serve this form of eviction notice once the tenant’s fixed-term tenancy has ended or on occasions where the tenancy is open-ended.

The duration of the fixed term is set out in the tenancy agreement. In the UK, the length of a fixed-term is usually between six months to one year.

A Section 21 notice becomes invalid if the landlord hasn’t correctly completed several requirements, which include:

1. The tenancy must be an Assured-Shorthold Tenancy.
2. A tenant must provide the correct amount of notice. The notice period is currently six months because of Covid-19.
3. A landlord must have correctly served the Section 21 notice.
4. The notice must be served after the end of the tenancy’s fixed-term.
5. The tenant hasn’t recently made complaints about the condition of the property.
6. A local authority hasn’t served an “Improvement Notice” or “Notice of Emergency Remedial Action” in the last six months.
7. A tenant must’ve received a copy of the gas safety certificate, an Energy Performance Certificate and the Government’s ‘How to Rent’ guide during their tenancy.
8. The tenant’s deposit is protected in a government-authorised scheme. A tenant should’ve been served prescribed information with a deposit certificate within 30 days after paying their deposit.

For more questions on what makes a section 21 notice valid, please contact our solicitors on 020 3007 5500.

As highlighted above, one of the factors that can make a section 21 notice invalid is the way the notice has been served. Therefore, if you’re serving a section 21 notice it’s important to know how to correctly serve the notice.

When you want to serve notice a form 6a will need to be properly completed and then served to the tenant in one of the following ways.

1. Personal delivery
2. Left at address
3. Recorded postal delivery
4. Using a process server
5. First-class postal delivery
6. Email

When you serve the section 21 notice, proof of delivery is of the utmost importance. If your tenant contests the eviction, it’s highly highly likely that this proof of delivery will be demanded in court.

The notice date in the section 21 notice isn’t when tenancy legally ends, but more of a date to urge the tenant to move out. If the tenant hasn’t left the premises by the notice date, you will need to look to legally enforce the eviction.

The next stage to evicting a tenant will be to identify and apply for the possession claim. However, if the tenant is still not evicting the premises, you will need to apply for a warrant of possession from the courts. If this warrant of possession is approved, the court will issue the tenant with an eviction notice with a date that they must legally vacate the property by. If the tenant was to ignore this eviction date, a bailiff will go round to remove the tenants.

When it comes to the cost of evicting a tenant through a section 21 notice, it entirely depends on several factors. For instance, whether the tenant vacates the property by the notice date or contests the eviction.

Evicting your tenant may be as straight forward as getting a solicitor to serve notice and then the tenants move out but the notice date.

Generally, our solicitors advise that the costs associated with a section 21 are:

Recoverable costs

These are capped at £69.50 for legal fees and the court issue fee of £355.

Few eviction solicitors offer legal aid and while we would love to, the government only appoints a tiny number of law firms to offer these services. So for the time being, we can only accept privately funded cases.