Here is a question to the blog clinic from Debbie, who is a tenant in England.
I have been served a section 21 as the landlord is selling.
I moved in 14 years ago with the help of the council, they also acted as my guarantor. I had no money for a deposit, so the council set up a payment plan with a credit union bank. The landlord never asked for the deposit in 14 years or about it until recently.
He is now trying to contact the council about it . As he never asked for it or protected it, can he claim anything back?
As the council were my guarantor, can he claim from them? He is a very difficult landlord, we have always looked after property, but I can see him trying to claim every penny he can.
I also never had a rent guide, epc certificate until recently.
He also has been late by as much as a year in one case with the gas check . He also was late with the electric safety certificate by a year and had to have extensive work done to pass the test. Where do I stand with this as am really worried he is going to make things very difficult. Thanks
Answer
There are quite a few issues here so let us look at them one by one.
The deposit.
You say that the Council acted as your guarantor and also that they set up a payment plan with a credit union. However, you don’t say whether you actually paid the deposit or not.
You also don’t say why the landlord is trying to make a claim. Have you broken anything or damaged the property?
If you have done nothing wrong, then the landlord is not entitled to claim anything. However if the landlord has a claim, then whether he will be entitled to any money will depend
- on the nature of his claim,
- whether you are actually responsible for whatever he is claiming and (if you are responsible)
- whether the sum he is claiming is fair.
If you did pay a deposit, then your landlord should have protected this within 30 days of receipt of the money. If this was not done (as appears from your question) then:
- His section 21 notice will be invalid, and
- You will be able to go to court and claim up to 3x the deposit sum
As regards claiming from the Council under the guarantee – whether he can do this or not depends on the terms of the guarantee and what exactly he will be claiming for.
How to rent booklet and EPC
These are supposed to be served before or at the start of a tenancy, and failure to serve them at all will invalidate a section 21 notice. However, if they are served late but before the section 21 notice is served, then the section 21 notice will be valid.
However, the landlord is vulnerable to being fined by the Council for failure to serve the EPC at the proper time.
Gas and electricity checks
So far as section 21 notices are concerned, landlords must have served a valid gas safety certificate on tenants before they moved in – unless the tenancy started before 1 October 2015 and the tenancy has not been renewed since then (i.e. no new tenancy agreement or renewal form has been given to you).
It sounds as if this is the case for you, in which case, although the landlord may be vulnerable to penalties from the Council, the late service will not invalidate the section 21 notice served.
Electric checks do not affect the validity of section 21 notices, although, again, the landlord may face enforcement action from the Council if the checks are not done and/or any necessary work is not done.
Section 21 notices
As you can see above, there are a number of requirements that landlords must have satisfied before a valid Section 21 notice can be served.
From the information given above it looks as if the landlord may have breached the rules regarding deposits – although it is impossible to say as you do not say whether or not you actually paid a deposit.
If the landlord has breached the deposit rules then the only way he can serve a valid section 21 notice is by repaying the deposit money to you before he serves his section 21 notice.
And finally
The fact that the landlord wants to sell the property is not (at the moment) a legal ground for possession. So if you are not in arrears of rent, he is left with no alternative but to bring a claim under the ‘no fault’ section 21 procedure.
So you need to check to see whether he is legally entitled to do this. My Renters Guide website has a helpful article here which looks at the various rules that landlords must satisfy as a condition of being able to serve a valid section 21 notice.
Probably the best thing is for you to get some legal advice. The Renters Guide has a useful article here which lists various advice services, many of which are free. You should arrange to speak to someone as soon as possible.