Many of you will know that I have written an ebook on section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, which was released recently as a ‘beta’ version, at a modest price, to members of my mailing list, for a limited period, in exchange for feedback.
I have now received most of that feedback and have been going through it all carefully.
It is incredible! When I finished that book and got it ready for the initial launch, I felt pretty satisfied with it. It had been read by two people, a TRO and a specialist housing solicitor, and I had also employed someone to proof read it for typing errors.
However:
- A solicitor has pointed out a whole topic (not a large or particularly important one, but a topic nonetheless) which I had completely forgotten about
- A letting agent has pin pointed with frightening accuracy a grey fuzzy area which I had rather skated over (as do most lawyers as there is no clear answer)
- It is clear from some criticism that the readers simply had not understood the points being made in some parts of the book, and so I have had to re-write those sections to make them clearer, with examples
- Several people have pointed out typos and grammatical errors
And I am only about 1/3 of the way through the feedback forms! All I can say is Thank God I asked for feedback before many more of the books were sold.
Its a bit scary getting feedback on a new book, but it is, I would venture to suggest, essential. Particularly if, like me now, you are going to self publish, and so don’t have the benefit of an editor (as I had for my books published by Law Pack).
I’m hoping that the section 21 book will be out some time during May, but if you want to be kept informed please join my mailing list here. There will almost certainly be a time limited launch offer, and you won’t want to miss that.
Everyone who helped with the feedback will get a free copy of the new version as a thank you. The book would have been considerably poorer without them.
Looking forward for that ebook.
There’s been an issue bugging me and which seems to have generated (and to still do) quite some debates online. Hopefully there will be a little something on the topic in your ebook:
Following the serving of a section 21 notice to expire after the fixed term has ended, must the tenant still serve is own notice to quit in order to end the tenancy when vacating?
Or does vacating in ‘compliance’ (so to speak) with the notice in itself brings the tenancy to an end? Could the landlord refuse the surrender? Perhaps taking into account the moving out date (before notice expiry, on notice expiry, or after notice expiry)
Many thanks.
I’ll see what I can do.