If a house is let to the occupiers limited company, not them personally, how can you get it back?

Here is a question to the blog clinic from Angela (not her real name) who is a landlord:

I wish to give my tenants notice. They have not been a problem – just want my house back to live in.

I originally let it through an agency who dealt with everything. I then took over the periodic tenancy. I have only just received my contract (after much nagging to agents) and it has been let to the company of the couple and not the couple themselves.

The start of the document states it is let to the ‘……an organisation…..not covered by Part 1 of the Housing Act 1988’. Does this mean that I cannot give them a Section 21 notice?

Answer

No, you are fine, you will be able to get it back.  But you won’t be able to use section 21.

Section 21 can only be used for assured shorthold tenancies.  These were set up by the Housing Act 1988 which also prescribes how they work, including the rules for evicting tenants.

However not all tenancies are assured shorthold tenancies.  Lets to a limited company are excluded.  Which means that they are governed by the original ‘common law’ rules which applied to all tenancies before the various housing acts came along to change them.

Evicting company tenants

You can’t use section 21 so a section 21 notice will be of no effect.  You need to serve an old-style ‘Notice to Quit’ which needs to have prescribed wording on it.  You can find them in Law Stationers and my Landlord Law service has them.

The notice period is one full ‘period’ of the tenancy or 28 days whichever is the longer.  So if your periodic tenancy is monthly you actually do not need to give as long a notice period as you do under section 21 (which requires a minimum of two months notice).

You also do not need to worry about all the rules that surround section 21 claims as they do not apply to other types of eviction – so it should actually be easier.  Your ground for possession will be that you have served a Notice to Quit on the tenants (ie the company) and you have not been given vacant possession.

We have a detailed guide on my Landlord Law service which you can read about here, although if you want to use solicitors, we recommend Landlord Action.

Incidentally, I am a bit surprised that your agents let to a company rather than the occupiers themselves without telling you, and this may be why they were so reluctant to let you have the tenancy agreement.