Is this YOUR story?
I’ve known many people have problems with section 21. Thats the section in the Housing Act which allows you to recover your property, even if the tenant hasn’t done anything wrong.
It was supposed to be a really simple straightforward matter, but you know how it is with rules and regulations. Complexities thrown in, seemingly for no reason, other than to make life difficult for you.
Maria’s story
Take Maria. She wanted to evict her non rent paying tenant, so she arranged to serve a section 21 notice she had downloaded free from the internet. She read somewhere that you had to give two months notice so thats what she did. Then she want round to her tenants house and served the notice on him. He promptly chucked it in the bin.
“I’m not leaving” he said to her. “You’ll have to get a court order before I go”.
So thats what she did. She went up to the court and got the papers, filled them in, and sent them off. However when the order finally came through from the court, it was not an order for possession – it was an order dismissing her claim!
There was a note on the form saying that the expiry date on the notice was incorrect. But how could it be? She had given the tenant two months hadn’t she?
However when Maria eventually went to see a solicitor, he told her that when a section 21 notice is served after the fixed term of the tenancy has ended, it has to end on a special day. A ‘last day of a period of the tenancy’ he said. So the Judge was right, he said, to reject her claim. And then he charged her £200 for the advice!
So poor old Maria had to serve another notice, wait nearly three months, and then issue proceedings all over again. She did get her property back in the end, but it took about six months longer than she had expected. And it cost her a bunch of money as she decided to use a solicitor this time. Not a happy experience.
Colin and Keith – they had problems too!
I’ve known lots of landlords like Maria. There was Colin, whose claim was rejected because the tenant said he hadn’t received the notice. Colin couldn’t prove anything because it had been served by ordinary post.
Then there was Keith the letting agent. His sophisticated software put the wrong date on the notice because his temporary clerk had inputted the wrong tenancy start date. If only his notice had had a saving clause! His client was NOT a happy bunny.
And yet. If only they had known more about the system and how it works, they could have avoided these problems. You don’t need to use expensive lawyers. Just have a bit of knowledge and understanding. Thats what I have tried to give people with my ebook ‘Assured Shorthold Tenancies – Your Complete Guide to Section 21’.
“First Class, at last we have a book that explains things simply without the usual legal jargon that goes with it”. Geoffrey Lee, trustee landlord”
Contrast Alex
For example, consider Alex. He bought the section 21 book and read it carefully. As a result of this he learned the pitfalls that can trap the unwary with section 21 and made sure that his section 21 notice was property drafted and was served after all the necessary preliminaries had been done.
His tenants took the notice to a solicitor for advice, but were told that there was nothing they could do. If they tried to defend a claim for possession they would lose. He advised them to concentrate their energies on finding somewhere else to live. Which is what they did.
Ian the property investor
Then there is Ian. He is a property investor. He was tempted by an investment property that was on the market at a very low price. However after buying and reading my book he realised just WHY it was at such a low price! He decided to buy elsewhere, and saved himself a load of trouble.
The ebook is available for sale
>> here.
“Government publications on the subject had simply confused me and whilst I had followed professional advice in setting up the AST I did not understand fully why it had to be that way. Now I do thanks to this book!” Barry Fox, landlord