New Notice Periods Announced

A press release yesterday afternoon at 4.03pm by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, imprisoned me to an evening of attempting to make sense of the amendments to notice periods.

Having trawled my way through the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Residential Tenancies: Protection from Eviction) (Amendment) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2021 I awoke bleary eyed this morning with a passable sense of what this means for landlords and tenants.

So, in a nutshell:

From the 1st June 2021, Section 21 notices will carry a four month notice period rather than the current six months.

Where a landlord needs to serve a Section 8 notice, usually when there has been a breach of the tenancy, then the majority of these grounds are reduced to four months. There are some exceptions, depending which ground is being relied upon.

• Ground 7 – Death of a Tenant (2 months’ notice)
• Ground 7a – Serious Anti Social Behaviour (one months’ notice)
• Ground 7B – Breach of Immigration rules ‘Right to Rent’ (2 weeks’ notice)
• Ground 14 – Anti-Social Behaviour (immediate)
• Ground 14A – Domestic Abuse in the social sector (2 to 4 weeks’ notice)
• Ground 17 – False Statement (2 weeks’ notice)

The most common grounds used with a Section 8, are grounds 8, 10 and 11 for rent arrears. There is a tapered change to these notice periods.

From 1st June 2021 

• Four months or more of unpaid rent requires 4 weeks notice
• Less than four months of unpaid rent requires 4 months notice

From 1st August 2021

• Four months or more of unpaid rent requires 4 weeks notice
• Less than four months of unpaid rent requires 2 months notice

If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to use the Section 8 process you should look to appoint a solicitor to help you. It is a complex area and given the time it is currently taking to obtain a Court hearing, you need to be confident all your paperwork is in order.

Please note the date this article was published as the law may have changed since it was posted. You should always seek independent legal advice if you are intending to rely on any of the contents.