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.