There are a number of different ways that a Landlord can recover possession of a property when the tenant has been served with an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (AST).

One way a Landlord can recover possession is to serve a Section 8 notice (S8), Housing Act 1988 as amended. This notice is served if a tenant has breached one or more terms of the tenancy agreement. The notice is usually for a period of 2 weeks, although some of the grounds (set out below) require more than 2 weeks notice. Each tenant must have a copy of the Section 8 notice.  They must be notified the grounds that the landlord is relying upon, and why they have breached those grounds. The tenant then has 2 weeks in order to rectify the breach, or agree reasonable terms with the Landlord. if the Landlord does not hear from the tenant, or the terms are totally unreasonable, then after the notice has expired, the Landlord should apply for a Court order.  You cannot insist that a tenant vacates without a court order, even if the notice has expired. The notice must be served in the prescribed form, we can assist you by providing you with a pro-forma for the notice.  You can then either complete the form yourself, ask us to complete the form and serve the notice and provide a certificate of service, or you can simply ask for 40 minutes advice on how to complete the form for £60.00.  Our fee for completing the form and serving it, is only £75.00 plus vat.  So you may feel it is money well spent to make sure that the notice is valid. Please be aware, there are discretionary grounds (where the Judge can use his/her discretion to order possession) or mandatory grounds.  We have set the grounds out below.

These are the mandatory grounds 1 - 8

Ground 1: The Landlord requires possession as he used to occupy the property as his main home or he now wishes to occupy the property as his main home.

In order to evict a tenant successfully, you have to make sure that all the pre-eviction steps are in order.  Have you registered yourself as a Landlord? Do you have a licence in place? Did you register a bond? Did you serve the prescribed information? Do you have a tenancy agreement? If you are claiming (for example) rent arrears, do you have a rent schedule showing the dates when rent was paid and the dates when rent payments were missed? If all this is in order, you then have to decide whether you are issuing a S21 notice or a S8 notice.  The S21 notice is usually for 2 months, the S8 notice has to be for 2 weeks (it can have a different notice period depending on the ground in the S8 notice you are relying upon, but it is again usually 2 weeks).  The S21 notice is non-fault based, the S8 notice, is used when the tenant has breached a term of the tenancy agreement (e.g. not paying your rent).  It is important to decide which process will suit your individual circumstances in order to make sure the process is smooth and effective.  Once the notice has been served on all the tenants you are evicting, and once it has expired, you can move to the next step in the eviction process.  You cannot obtain vacant possession until a Court order has been obtained, so your next step is to apply for possession, either through the S8 process or through the S21 process.  The Section 21 process is a paper based exercise, a S8 process means that you will have to attend Court.  If the pre-eviction steps have not been followed, you may still be able to obtain possession, but, you may need the assistance of an expert housing lawyer to do this as you will have to be carefully and skilfully advised on the best options available to you.  If you would like a S8 or S21 notice, then we will provide you with one without charge.  If you would like help to complete the notice correctly, serve it correctly on the tenant and then provide a certificate of service for the Court process, our housing team can assist you for £75.00 plus vat.  Click here for further details.  The above applies to properties in Wales.  If you are renting properties in England, then you have to comply with slightly different regulations that our housing team can advise you during a free consultation.

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There are mainly two procedures to follow when a landlord wishes to obtain possession of his/her property which is let under an AST.  Firstly a Landlord has to make sure that all the licenses are in place, that if the property is in Wales, that the Landlord is registered, that the bonds are also registered and the prescribed information has been served. If in England, retaliatory evictions does not apply when serving a S21 notice.   If all the above is correct, then the landlord can serve either a Section 21 notice, or a Section 8 notice.  The Section 21 notice, is served because the landlord simply wishes to recover the property from the tenant.  the notice is served for 2 months.  Once the two months has expired, then an application for accelerated possession can be made.  The other route is when a tenant has breached a condition of the tenancy, there are mandatory grounds (the Court should make an order) and discretionary grounds, where the Court has the discretion to order possession or not.  With a Section 8 notice it must be served for 2 weeks, rather than the 2 months of a Section 21 notice.  A landlord can recover his/her loses by serving a Section 8 notice (e.g. rent arrears).  It is important that you get all your paper work correct which ever procedure you follow as any discrepancy will give the tenant a complete defence.  Many Landlords find the £60.00 advice line helpful because we can explain the pitfalls and help you to make sure you fast track your eviction process.  It is often difficult to obtain free advice, so for initial guidance, the firm does offer 10 minute free advice which will put you in the right direction.