We appreciate that many landlords are apprehensive about how the changes proposed in the new Renters Rights Bill (“the Bill”) will affect the management of their rented properties.
In this article, I’ll explain what a Section 21 notice is, what the proposed changes in the Bill are, and what landlords will need to do to get vacant possession of their property under the new draft provisions.
A Section 21 notice is a notice served under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988. This allows landlords to serve a minimum of 2 months’ notice on tenants with assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) to be able to apply for a possession order to bring their tenancy to an end. The key thing about these types of notice is that landlords don’t need to provide a reason for the eviction of the tenant and so section 21 notices are commonly known as “no fault notices” – i.e: the tenant doesn’t need to have been at fault, for the notice to be served.
Under the current law, a landlord cannot serve a Section 21 notice with an eviction date earlier than the day after the fixed term of the tenancy has expired. A landlord must also ensure the property has a valid EPC and gas safety certificate, both of which should have been provided to the tenant. In most cases, the deposit must have been protected within 30 days of receipt in a recognised scheme and the tenant needs to have been given the prescribed deposit information, as well as the How to Rent checklist, which was current at the date the tenancy was entered into.
There are some other general requirements, such as that the landlord must not have an outstanding improvement or emergency works notice served in respect of the property, and any licence conditions relating to HMOs must be complied with.
This is a brief overview of the requirements, but if you need any specific advice then please do get in touch.
As has been widely reported, the Bill does away with Section 21 notices completely. They won’t be able to be used at all when the Bill is brought into effect and this will apply to all new and existing tenancies.
You will need to use the Section 8 procedure instead. This is a notice procedure currently set out in Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, which will be amended by the Bill.
Section 8 notices are colloquially known as ‘fault notices’ as some of the grounds require the tenant to have ‘done’ something, in order for a landlord to terminate their occupation – although there are also a number of ‘no fault’ grounds. These notices are also used when a landlord may want to bring the tenancy to an end earlier than the contractual end date of the tenancy.
The current grounds for serving a Section 8 notice are set out in Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 and a useful summary can be found here: Shelter Legal – Assured tenancy mandatory grounds for possession.
The Bill is widening the current grounds and lengthening the notice periods required to be given to the tenant. The differences proposed to the existing Section 8 grounds will be the subject of another article, but some of the key ones are discussed in paragraph 4 here: Out with Renters’ Reform, In with Renters’ Rights: The Renters Rights Bill.
Under the current law, no. A landlord only needs to show that the relevant ground on which they want to rely on under Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 has been met, in order to serve a Section 8 notice.
However, under the new Bill, a landlord will be required to protect the tenant’s deposit and to give the tenant the prescribed information in order to serve a Section 8 notice – although the requirement to have protected the deposit within 30 days of receipt (as per the current Section 21 notice requirement) will not need to be met.
The landlord will also need to be registered on the new proposed landlord’s database, to be known as a “property portal”, in order to serve a Section 8 notice.
This is going to be a database called the Property Portal, on which all landlords will have to pay to register, if they have a rented property or a property they intend to let.
It seems that as part of the registration, a landlord will need to provide evidence of the property’s EPC and gas safety certificate.
If a landlord has not registered on the landlord’s database, then they will not be able to serve a Section 8 notice on their tenant.
Therefore, it is likely that in a roundabout way via the database, the current requirements for serving a Section 21 notice will be imposed on landlords wanting to serve a Section 8 notice under the Bill.
The Section 8 notice itself, will also need to be uploaded onto the database by the landlord after being served on a tenant.
We would recommend that you have complied with all of the relevant legislation relating to a rented property. This means ensuring that your property has a valid EPC of E or above, an in-date gas safety certificate and the tenant’s deposit has been protected in a tenancy deposit scheme. If you have already complied with existing legislation, this is likely to make it easier for you to register with the landlord’s database when it is released.
We also recommend that you stay up to date with the progress of the Bill so that you are not caught by surprise when it comes into law.
As a reminder, the information in this article is based on the Bill at the current time and the provisions set out above may change before the Bill becomes law. However, as the Renters Rights Bill was part of the Labour Government’s manifesto, we can be fairly certain that significant reform is coming to the AST regime.
If you would like to discuss any of the changes above or you want to take any action now to prepare for the changes, then please contact Lydia Robinson.
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