Landlord and Tenant Act - Possession Claims
Depending upon the reason for possession, there are different procedures you must follow as a Landlord if you want your tenants to leave your property. The procedure you will need to follow will depend on the type of tenancy agreement you have and the terms of agreement.
Mostly commonly, agreements tend to be assured shorthold tenancy and landlords can evict tenants by serving a section 8 notice (standard possession claims) or a section 21 notice (accelerated possession procedure) or both under the Housing Act 1988.
Get legal adviceSection 21 notice of possession
A Section 21 notice of possession is served to give 'notice of possession' to the tenant. This means you can take back possession of your property at the end of a fixed-term tenancy agreement, or trigger an agreed break clause. Importantly, you don’t have to provide any reason to claim possession when you serve a valid Section 21. There are various exclusions when section 21 notices cannot be used.
Section 8 eviction notice
A Section 8 eviction notice is served when you have grounds for eviction. For example, the tenant has not paid the rent, damaged the property or is causing a nuisance. In such cases you can terminate the tenancy during its fixed term if the tenant has breached the tenancy agreement. Your tenant may dispute it, and it could go to court where you’ll need to evidence the reason for the eviction.
Landlord giving notice to a tenant
With either notice, it is very important that the correct time frames are provided within the notice to the tenant. If the time frames are incorrect this will make the notice invalid and will have an impact upon court proceedings should the tenant not vacate.
Possession claims
Should you need to issue proceedings, possession claims normally commence in the County Court. For possession claims based solely on rent arrears, it is possible to issue a claim online via the Possession Claims Online service.
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