Section 21 Notice and a cowboy EA/landlord

Tirian

So, we are currently renting a house with a 1 year tenancy agreement which expires 9 September. In March our offer on a house purchase was accepted. We at that point, and at every point thereafter have kept our estate agents fully informed of our situation, including through some recent difficulties where our vendors had to change solicitors and the original solicitors proved obstructive (refusing to forward draft contracts etc).

We've consistently explained that we hope to complete before the tenancy period expires, but indicated that if necessary we may wish to extend for a month or so if the purchase process has any significant delays.

This weekend, without any prior warning, we received a Section 21 Notice in the post. The estate agent claims that the landlord now "needs" the property as soon as the tenancy expires, and won't consider any extension to the tenancy period.

We have been aware, since shortly after moving in, that the landlord is in fact a member of staff (and partner) at the EAs - although they have consistently maintained the facade that it is someone entirely independent (e.g. whenever we have called about maintenance, telling us that they would 'try to contact the landlord' and then get back to us).

As such, very doubtful that the landlord does actually "require" the property - in fact, very strongly suspect that their position is more to do with the fact that they are handling one of the sales further down the chain and want to force things forward.

Anyway, this naturally is a big potential problem for us - if we can't get a completion date by the end of August now, we are homeless. Nowhere is going to rent us a place for 1 or 2 months, and in any case moving twice with an 8 month old baby would be a nightmare, and cost a fortune.

Any suggestions anyone?? Please?!? Obviously we are (and have from the start) been doing all we can to get the sale completed before the end of the tenancy - but can't believe our :mad: EA/landlord are threatening to make us homeless simply to get their transaction through a few weeks quicker.

silvercar

Section 21 notice is only the first stage. If you didn't move out the landlord would have to go to court to get a notice to evict and eventually get baliffs in. So in reality you have a few more months.

DRP

silvercar wrote: »

Section 21 notice is only the first stage. If you didn't move out the landlord would have to go to court to get a notice to evict and eventually get baliffs in. So in reality you have a few more months.

yes and if you're buying, it is not as if you need a reference from the LL :cool:

Tirian

I'm aware of that - but I have also been told that you can be made liable for costs if things go down this road.

Obviously, that may be less than the costs we would incur otherwise ... but it might not. Would it make any difference on that front that we are willing (and have attempted) to arrange agreed terms for any extension of the tenancy?

Is there any limit to the costs that we could incur that way?

BitterAndTwisted

Forget about costs for the moment. The landlord will have to apply to the court for possession upon the expiry of the S21 Notice. Getting a court date is entirely dependent on how busy the courts are. They may not be able to get a court date until November and by that time you could be out of there.

sharpee

Is it likely you won't have completed by the end of August?
Is it a big chain or complicated purchase as it sounds like a long time to me. But maybe I've just been lucky in my house purchase.

BitterAndTwisted

Tirian wrote: »

Would it make any difference on that front that we are willing (and have attempted) to arrange agreed terms for any extension of the tenancy?

You don't have to make a formal agreement to extend your tenancy. The day after your fixed-term expires you automatically go onto a rolling periodic tenancy. Which means you will have to give your landlord one month's notice according to the rental-periods on the original fixed-term.

As far as I know there are no penalties imposed for not leaving by the last day of your fixed-term. The only cost so far to the landlord is issuing the S21 which is minimal. If you confirm in writing your intent to leave the property at the earliest possible opportunity (precise date cannot be confirmed at this moment) they may not bother making an application to the court at all as you are likely to be out of there before the court-date.

Kynthia

A section 21 is a 'no fault' eviction request which means the LL isn't claiming to the court that you've done anything wrong but that they need the property back. This means a judge is unlikely to make you pay a high amount of costs as you aren't at fault so it might only be a £175(ish). If you don't leave by the date the judge gives you might need to pay the bailiff fee.

Tirian

@Sharpee - it shouldn't have been problematic at all - especially given we are at the beginning of the chain. But we basically ended up waiting for ages for the vendors to switch their solicitors (apparently their original sols weren't on a certain lender's panel).

Their EAs insist now that there was no problem with the transfer, but that's quite a different story than we got when we were chasing it a few weeks ago because there was nothing happening. Eventually our sols sent the new ones copies of the draft contracts that they had retained when the original pack had to be sent back - and that was when things actually started moving along again. Frustrating ...

Anyway, I sent an email to our sols and the vendors EAs this morning outlining the situation, and they've suddenly popped up to say that we should be able to complete by the end of the month. Funny how they never managed to give us any info of this sort until now.

So, fingers crossed ... we've still got a few enquiries to get through, but hopefully nothing major. Still very mad at our EA/landlord for the way they've treated us in all this.

Their name will be mud to everyone we know as a result - surely not the kind of reputation they will want to build, you would have thought .. but that's their call I guess.

Tirian

Kynthia wrote: »

A section 21 is a 'no fault' eviction request which means the LL isn't claiming to the court that you've done anything wrong but that they need the property back. This means a judge is unlikely to make you pay a high amount of costs as you aren't at fault so it might only be a £175(ish). If you don't leave by the date the judge gives you might need to pay the bailiff fee.

That sounds good .... although your sig doesn't reassure me

BitterAndTwisted

None of us are experts here and that's why we don't charge you a fee for our opinions