Question regarding section 21 notice

Gandalfthegrey

I wont go into much detail but basically our LL's have given us a hand written letter with 2 months notice to vacate the house we rent from them.
If I advise them that they should issue us with an official section 21 notice will that mean we have made ourselves 'intentionally homeless' in the eyes of the council? should I leave it to the council to advise them of this? (I dont know if the council even do that)
Thanks

N79

What do you mean by "an official S21 notice". There is no prescribed form, so a letter could well be a valid S21 notice provided the dates are correct and the letter includes the mandatory information as detailed in S21 (which refers to Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 as amended).

BitterAndTwisted

It all depends on what you want to happen. If you are seeking help from your Local Authority to be rehoused then they will not accept any hand-written document from your landlord: they must issue you with a valid S21 and some LAs will not even accept that. They could insist that your LL applies to the court for a possession order before they will accept any responsibility. Some LAs will insist that you wait until the court appointed bailiffs are at the door before they will help you.

If you want to compel the LA to accept responsibility to rehouse you sooner rather than later you should tell your landlord to issue you with a valid S21 Notice. Asking for one cannot ever be construed as making yourself "voluntarily homeless" by any normal person but these are not normal times and most LAs do not have odd properties lying empty for anyone who asks for them, so expect to have to jump through hoops to get any help whatsoever.

You do realise that you could be dumped in some scabby B&B as temporary accommodations for an extended period, don't you? The LA could try and find a let through a private landlord if there isn't any prospect of supplying a property themselves. You could end up almost anywhere

N79

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

It all depends on what you want to happen. If you are seeking help from your Local Authority to be rehoused then they will not accept any hand-written document from your landlord: they must issue you with a valid S21 and some LAs will not even accept that. They could insist that your LL applies to the court for a possession order before they will accept any responsibility. Some LAs will insist that you wait until the court appointed bailiffs are at the door before they will help you.

If you want to compel the LA to accept responsibility to rehouse you sooner rather than later you should tell your landlord to issue you with a valid S21 Notice. Asking for one cannot ever be construed as making yourself "voluntarily homeless" by any normal person but these are not normal times and most LAs do not have odd properties lying empty for anyone who asks for them, so expect to have to jump through hoops to get any help whatsoever.

You do realise that you could be dumped in some scabby B&B as temporary accommodations for an extended period, don't you? The LA could try and find a let through a private landlord if there isn't any prospect of supplying a property themselves. You could end up almost anywhere

But a handwritten letter could be a valid S21 notice! Before the days of home / small business computers (they were a lot less common in 1990 believe it or not) it was perfectly normal for them to be handwritten letters!

neas

i think gandalf is alluding to the fact a month or so ago they got a hand delivered letter 1 day after their rent day.. so it was infact invalid because it was one day late.

Thats how gandalf is playing it.. waiting the 2 months to tell landlord they cocked up, getting a nother 2 months in tenancy having their baby and then getting council homed after getting section 21.

Alas now gandalf plans have changed because... having read another thread on here she realises that she could've used the 'valid section 21' to get housed by council quicker and not !!!!ing off her landlord (who coincidentally she has to live next door to for 2 months when she informs them the s21 is invalid oops). So in gandalfs eyes she would like to tell her landlord now and change her plan of 'screwing over' le landlord... to telling them its invalid so they can give her a new valid one to enable a quicker route to council housing.

What comes around goes around i think i remember saying and while you made the choice to hide the incorrect date, its now slightly backfired in fact you have to live next to annoyed landlord and wait longer for council house instead of just owning up and being a good person at the beginning..

Ahh i feel better now.

See

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3019674

For background on her way ahead 3 weeks ago :O

Gandalfthegrey

It needs to mention "under setion 21 of the housing act.... bla bla bla" though doesn't it? which this letter does not, therefore I dont think the letter we received is considered proper notice.

So my question is: if I advise the LL's that they need to write the above, will that be deemed as making ourselves intentionally homeless? The council may ring the landlord to establish if we have done anything to make ourselves homeless on purpose and if our LL's say: "well yes they told us to issue them with correct notice" would that be considered intentionally homeless?

Gandalfthegrey

neas wrote: »

i think gandalf is alluding to the fact a month or so ago they got a hand delivered letter 1 day after their rent day.. so it was infact invalid because it was one day late.

Thats how gandalf is playing it.. waiting the 2 months to tell landlord they cocked up, getting a nother 2 months in tenancy having their baby and then getting council homed after getting section 21.

Alas now gandalf plans have changed because... having read another thread on here she realises that she could've used the 'valid section 21' to get housed by council quicker and not !!!!ing off her landlord (who coincidentally she has to live next door to for 2 months when she informs them the s21 is invalid oops). So in gandalfs eyes she would like to tell her landlord now and change her plan of 'screwing over' le landlord... to telling them its invalid so they can give her a new valid one to enable a quicker route to council housing.

What comes around goes around i think i remember saying and while you made the choice to hide the incorrect date, its now slightly backfired in fact you have to live next to annoyed landlord and wait longer for council house instead of just owning up and being a good person at the beginning..

Ahh i feel better now.

See

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3019674

For background on her way ahead 3 weeks ago :O

No it was delivered the day before so all valid, they have done everything correctly (also have our deposit in a government scheme) just they havent mentioned 'under section 21' Yes I would like to hurry things along, we are getting a bit of pressure from them to move out so dont want to p them off, and dont want the hassel.
I wont get dragged into an argument about what you consider right or wrong, I just want to ask for advice based on facts. Thanks

Jowo_2

Gandalfthegrey wrote: »

..
If I advise them that they should issue us with an official section 21 notice will that mean we have made ourselves 'intentionally homeless' in the eyes of the council? should I leave it to the council to advise them of this?
Thanks

The Shelter website has excellent information on the homelessness process with the local council, including how they assess an application and what things are considered 'intentional homelessness', such as not paying rent when the tenant could have.

I believe that local councils are issued with guidance that say that they should not tell the tenant to remain in the property and ignore the notice if there's no realistic prospect of the court order not being obtained but I understand this gate-keeping practice is very common.

Again, Shelter can give you pointers on this position and if you can challenge any council instruction that you remain in the property until a court order is obtained.

neas

just find it funny you were prepared to screw landlord over but now want to go down a different route having heard otherwise.

N79

Gandalfthegrey wrote: »

It needs to mention "under setion 21 of the housing act.... bla bla bla" though doesn't it?

The housing act does not say that it needs to mention "under section 21 (1) or 21(4) as appropriate of the housing act" (at least not to my knowledge) nor has a higher court ever ruled on whether this is necessary (in fact, there are very few cases in the higher court because it is generally easier to "start again" than to take such a case forward against legal aid funded Ts.

So it is a good question. While I would always recommend LLs clearly identify the section of the act under which they are giving notice I'm not sure that it could be called a legal requirement. Edit: Interestingly Shelter believe it is a legal requirement but don't state any authority.

This is entirely different to the section 8 process where section 8(3) clearly prescribes the form of these notices. There is no equivalent clause for Section 21.

Of course, if it ever got that far, the High Court may disagree and make it a legal requirement - but as a T it might be risky to rely on this point in court.

Jowo_2

neas wrote: »

just find it funny you were prepared to screw landlord over but now want to go down a different route having heard otherwise.

The OP is conscious that if they do not secure social housing, which is more likely to those treated as a priority by the council (the homeless, those with dependents, etc), then she could miss the cut off point for a lifetime secure tenancy because of the changes proposed by the new govt to give social housing landlords discretion over the length of their tenancies and increase the rent closer to market prices.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/41254460#Comment_41254460

The problem with being issued notice that is considered too informal and not accepted by the council department is that the OP can't really risk waiting a couple of months for it to be detected by landlord and reissued again as the clock is ticking in the race against time to get a coveted secure tenancy that could be come a lot scarcer in future.