Updated Government guidance has reminded landlords that court rules currently in force require them to provide additional information when making possession claims.
Guidance for landlords and tenants was issued last week in response to the ending of most Covid 19 restrictions in England, where pre-Covid notice periods now apply and possession orders can be enforced by bailiffs.
But Government advice about avoiding possession actions wherever possible remain, and the guidance points to work it has done with the National Residential Landlords Association to produce a guide for private landlords and tenants on managing arrears and avoiding court action in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.
Where court action cannot be avoided, landlords making possession claims are now required to set out any information they are aware of about how their tenant, or any dependant of their tenant, has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. ‘Where the claim relates to rent arrears, landlords will also need to provide an updated rent account for the previous two years in advance of the hearing. Where any of this information is not provided, judges can adjourn proceedings until the requirement to provide it has been met’.
Updated Technical guidance on eviction notices reminds landlords about restrictions on the use of section 21 possession claims.
For example, landlords cannot use a Section 21 notice if it is less than four months since the tenancy began, or the property is a house in multiple occupation and requires a licence as such. Neither can they be use section 21 notices where the tenancy began on or after 6 April 2007 and the landlord has not complied with the relevant tenant deposit protection legislation nor where the council has served an improvement notice or an emergency remedial notice in the last six months.
Landlords must use Form 6A if the tenancy was started or renewed after 30 September 2015 (this form has been amended to reflect the changes to possession procedures which came into force on 1 October 2021).
To give tenants a Section 8 notice that the landlord intends to seek possession using a ground in schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988, a landlord must fill in Form 3 – ‘Notice of intention to begin proceedings for possession of a property in England let on an assured tenancy or an assured agricultural occupancy’, this was previously known as a ‘Notice seeking possession of a property let on an assured tenancy or an assured agricultural occupancy’.
As well as being re-named, Form 3 has been amended to remove the detailed notes that appeared within the form.
The notes are now contained in a separate document – the notes are for landlords and tenants and landlords are asked to provide a copy of the notes to the tenant when serving the completed form.
The new Form 3 came into force on 1 October 2021 when notice period lengths for Section 8 returned to the pre-Covid requirement.
