This is a question to the blog clinic from Gerald, who is a tenant in England.
I’ve been renting the same house since 2006. It was only last year that the landlord started using a letting agency, protected my deposit, and got an EPC and gas certificate. The AST started in August 2023. I was served a s21 notice six months ago.
Given that the landlord had not followed the law re gas certs, deposit etc, is the s21 valid? Do I have any claim against the landlord at all?
Answer
You say that your AST ‘started in August 2021′ but presumably, that is when the agency gave you a new tenancy agreement. You will almost certainly have had an AST since you first moved into the property in 2006. ASTs have been the default tenancy type of all new tenancies since 1997.
I suspect that your landlord will be compliant with the deposit rules as deposits that were taken for tenancies whose fixed term ran out before the deposit rules came into effect in April 2007 do not need to protect the deposit unless a new tenancy agreement or tenancy renewal form is given and/or the landlord wants to serve a section 21 notice.
The law changed in 2015, imposing an obligation for landlords to serve Gas Safety Certificates on tenants at the start of their tenancy as a condition of being able to serve a valid section 21 notice. But this does not apply to pre-2015 tenancies unless and until a new tenancy agreement is given to the tenant.
So, your landlord’s obligation to serve a gas safety certificate (for section 21 purposes) would have started at the time you were given a new agreement.
Landlords have always been obligated to serve a copy of the gas safety certificate on tenants under the 1998 gas regulations but save under the new 2015 rules, this does not affect the validity of a section 21 notice.
The penalty for failing to serve a gas safety certificate is prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive, it is not something that tenants can claim for.
EPCs are a condition of serving a valid section 21 notice, but again, the rules do not apply to pre-2015 tenancies unless a new agreement is given and they can be served out of time.
Is there any possibility of a challenge to possession proceedings?
You may want to take some legal advice as to whether your landlord (through his agent)’s service of a gas safety certificate, once the new tenancy agreement was provided, was actually sufficient to satisfy his obligations. Bearing in mind that no gas safety certificate was provided earlier (and indeed, the wording of your question indicates that your landlord may not have had a gas safety certificate before 2023).
The law here is not clear, but there may be scope for a challenge.
You can find some sources of legal help on the Renters Guide advice services page.