Served Notice

palmski

* What date did your LL serve the Notice? LL served notice on 26/8/12 hand delivered typed letter.
It was a fixed 6 month contract which started 26th May 2011, We have never renegotiated since we have just paid every month and LL said it would just be long term so no official contract now.

What end date is on the Notice? letter reads vacate the property and hand all keys back on the 26th October

I hope i am answering as you need and i really appreciate your help.

DVardysShadow

If you have not received the 'prescribed information' in relation to what deposit protection scheme your deposit is registered with, then the S21 is invalid. Keep a lid on it and do not tell the landlord 'your S21 notice is valid because <blah blah>' for as long as possible - save it for a court defence

Meanwhile plan your exit ASAP.

Werdnal

palmski wrote: »

* What date did your LL serve the Notice? LL served notice on 26/8/12 hand delivered typed letter.
It was a fixed 6 month contract which started 26th May 2011, We have never renegotiated since we have just paid every month and LL said it would just be long term so no official contract now.

What end date is on the Notice? letter reads vacate the property and hand all keys back on the 26th October

I hope i am answering as you need and i really appreciate your help.

The S21 notice cannot demand you to vacate and hand back the keys. The S21 notice is notice that LL is "seeking possession", after the 2 months expires, the LL seeks that possession by applying to court for a possession order, which will then enforce the notice and require the tenant to leave.

The key thing here at the moment is the deposit - Can you confirm that you have not received any details from the agent on which scheme they or the LL have protected it with? Look through everything you have on the tenancy - they should have given you something called the "prescribed information" and the deposit scheme themselves should have also contacted you direct withy our own ID and login info. Have you received any of this? If not, then the S21 is definately invalid, and you can ignore it, but as mentioned above, do not tell the LL this just yet, as it will buy you some time! In fact, in order to now issue a correct and valid S21 which the court's will accept, the LL will have to return the whole deposit value as a penalty for not protecting it, and you can then file a claim for 1-3x the deposit value as compensation - but again, keep this to yourself for now, as it may come in handy later!!!!

You can check the schemes yourself - DPS, TDS and My deposits. All have a website and you should be able to search to see whether your deposit is with any of them. See what you can find!

palmski

Thanks everryone so much for your info so far
Just to confirm i do not even no what an s21 is. But all i did get today was a typed letter from them looks like they did it themselves at home saying they needed to move back in etc.
I have looked high and low today but cannot find our original agreement but it is here somewhere. Letter states i must continue to pay next months rent and deposit will be forwarded on to me etc etc. LL has never given any info on where deposit was stored i am am sure they will do all they can to hold on to it as they are in financial difficulty.

So is this letter even correct/Legally binding?
Should i pay next months rent?

pmlindyloo

palmski wrote: »

Thanks everryone so much for your info so far
Just to confirm i do not even no what an s21 is. But all i did get today was a typed letter from them looks like they did it themselves at home saying they needed to move back in etc.
I have looked high and low today but cannot find our original agreement but it is here somewhere. Letter states i must continue to pay next months rent and deposit will be forwarded on to me etc etc. LL has never given any info on where deposit was stored i am am sure they will do all they can to hold on to it as they are in financial difficulty.

So is this letter even correct/Legally binding?
Should i pay next months rent?

You must check the deposit schemes to see if your deposit was lodged with any of them. They are detailed in one of the previous posts.

Google each one adding 'is my deposit protected?' That should bring you up to the correct part of each website.

Do not worry about whether you have been issued with the correct Section 21 notice for now.

If your deposit has not been protected then even if it is a Section 21 notice it will be invalid.

Whatever you do you must keep paying the rent. Not protecting the deposit does not mean that the contract you signed is no longer in existence.

If this is taken to court the judge will not be impressed if you have not paid the rent.

Come back when you have checked out the deposit protection schemes.

chris_m

palmski wrote: »

Just to confirm i do not even no what an s21 is. But all i did get today was a typed letter from them looks like they did it themselves at home saying they needed to move back in etc.

Going by your earlier post (#6) it sounds like they've certainly attempted to make it a proper notice - here is a sample notice yoiu can compare to make sure that your letter is similar; http://www.youngandpearce.co.uk/Landlord%20forms/Section%2021(1)%20notice.pdf

However, you do need to
1) Find your original tenancy agreement so you can check the commencement date to ensure that the notice has been served in time for the LLs desired date. If it hasn't you've probably got at least an extra month.

2) Check the deposit schemes, if yours isn't in one of them then the S21 isn't valid, whether or not it has all the required information or is in the right timescale.

palmski

So if its not valid what does that mean to us?
Thanks again

Werdnal

palmski wrote: »

So if its not valid what does that mean to us?
Thanks again

You can ingore it for now. To enforce it the LL needs to apply for a court possession order and once court verifies all the info and finds it is invalid, the application for eviction will fail. LL's only option then would be to issue another "correct" S21, and wait another 2 months before he can apply to court to force you to leave.

In the meantime, you have more time to find yourself somewhere else to live.

At the moment, we still need you to verify, by checking all the deposit scheme websites, whether you can find your deposit registered with any of them. If not, it is very likely that the current notice is invalid.

If LL has failed to comply with the deposit regs, he must give you the full deposit value back BEFORE any S21 he issues will be valid. You can also sue him for 1-3x the deposit value as compensation for his failure to observe the regulations.

However, until you yourself check the deposit schemes or find any info you mayhave been provided, we cannot advise you any further on your options or whether this notice will stand up in court!

G_M

G_M wrote: »

Answer the questions if you want help!

* What kind of tenancy do you have? periodic
* Is it a Fixed Term and if so, when did it start and how long for or when will it end? periodic
* Or has the FT ended and is it Periodic? If so, what are the Period start/end dates? (Read this post to understand Periods)
26th to 25th each month
* What date did your LL serve the Notice? 26/8/12
* What kind of Notice was it? A verbal 'chat? A formal S21? (S21 (1) or S21 (4)?) letter.
*What end date is on the Notice? 26/10.12 this appears to be 2 full rental periods.

You can contact each of the 3 deposit schemes yourself to check it is registered. Read Deposits here.
Check! The schemes are there to protect your deposit!

* The timescale appears to be correct.
* But the letter does not appear to be in the correct (S21) form
* And since it appears you have not been given the precribed information regarding the deposit, the S21 would anyway be invalid.

So ignore it if you wish. To evict you, the LL will have to wait till 26th Oct. When you don't leave, he'll have to apply for a court possession order. This will take 2 - 8 weeks. You o to court and point out a) you've not had a S21 and b) you never received the prescribed info. The court thows out the landlord's application. He then has to start again!

palmski

Ok i have an answer from the LL he is saying that they never secured the deposit and just put in there own bank.
So i am now aware the S21 notice letter is invalid.. am i right?

If so now what are my options?