How Many Times Can Landlords Serve Section 8 Notices?

Legal experts from ARLA Propertymark remind landlords of their rights.

When a renter's arrears accrue to over six months of missed payments, letting agents and landlords have the right to serve a second Section 8 notice. This can be done even if the first Section 8 has yet to be enforced.

What is a Section 8 notice?

A Section 8 notice - or simply an 'eviction notice' - is used by landlords in England and Wales to terminate an assured shorthold tenancy (AST) when a tenant has breached the agreement or fallen into rent arrears.

Under the Housing Act 1988, a landlord is entitled to take possession of a property and issue a Section 8 notice when a tenant breaches certain criteria. Notices are usually served due to rent arrears, or things like property damage and noise complaints." Source.

There has been a critical change made on when a rent payment delay goes over the six months. The notice period for tenants drops from six months to only four weeks.

Property Wire spoke to Rober Bolwell, a senior partner at Dutton Gregory. The firm manages the ARLA Propertymark Legal Helpline.

Bolwell said: "One of the tantalising questions now is, what do I do if I have rent arrears of five months? Do I serve a notice now for six months' expiration date or do I wait until I go over the six-month mark?

"At six months, the rules say your Section 8 notice period (on ground eight) can be four weeks."

"We're looking at situations now where the clients have served a six-month notice initially, when the rent arrears are quite small, but when we get to that six months [of arrears] mark, we might be serving another notice because…of the shorter period [of 4 weeks notice]. The general rule is, it's never wrong to serve additional notices."

He said those with rent arrears of three or four months could be served notice, with landlords then "keeping an eye on those rent arrears and, if things are getting worse when you hit that six-month mark, serve another one for four weeks. Because that might enable you to start proceedings more quickly than waiting for your first notice to expire."

In terms of the court backlog, Bolwell said that "the indicators suggest that you will save time if you can go down the accelerated route than if you go down the normal route."

He said that this action could save landlords "weeks, maybe even months" in being granted a possession order.

Read the rest of the article, here.