Letting Agent messed up the Notice to Quit to our tenant

[Deleted User]

steampowered said:

Yes, that sounds very reasonable - generous, even.

Notices to quit are highly technical documents. You cannot realistically expect an estate agent to be familiar with all of the law and to guarantee to get it right. I know you are in Scotland but this flowchart gives you some idea: https://431bj62hscf91kqmgj258yg6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/s21updatedSept2020-2-1.pdf

 If you wanted to be able to rely on the Notice to Quit being fully correct from the start, you should have got a lawyer involved from the start.

You are running a lettings business at the end of the day. You cannot expect the tenant to move out at a time convenient to you. Evicting them could take months. Could you be better off reaching an agreement with your tenant and paying them compensation to leave?

I completely disagree with this. 

A flow chart for a Section 21 doesn’t really tell the op anything. The notice to quit for SAT could be a bit tricky with the ish dates but the new PRT notice to leave has been created so that you don’t need to be a legal professional in order to complete it. Furthermore, if it’s a service the letting agency offer and charge for then they should know how to do it correctly. 

AdrianC

Lover_of_Lycra said:
Furthermore, if it’s a service the letting agency offer and charge for then they should know how to do it correctly. 

This is the nub of it.

So what's the remedy?
Don't pay for it, and use somebody else in the future...

theartfullodger

In Scotland use a specialist company such as T C Young..

https://www.tcyoung.co.uk/sectors/private-landlords-and-letting-agents

Never had an issue with their work for me

Artful, Scottish landlord since 2000

Slàinte mhath!

FindMyWayBack

I am always astounded by how landlords think tenants will just magically disappear from their homes at the click of a finger to suit them. You should have stayed in your property until you knew they were able to move, there's a pandemic you know and tenants are human beings not commodities.

BarleySugar

Thanks everyone, for your replies. They’ve been very helpful.

Hannimal

sums up letting agents. leeches.

rach_k

Why not ask your letting agents to find somewhere for your tenants and do whatever is needed to sweeten the deal (help with moving costs?) to get them to go?  They don't have to, as other replies make clear, but they will have to move eventually so they might be happier to move quickly if they have extra help and some of their costs are covered.  

BarleySugar

We’ve already offered financial help, but our tenants have a very narrow location specification and they have a recently got a dog (without our permission). The letting agents are finding the dog excludes them from most properties.

steampowered

Lover_of_Lycra said:

I completely disagree with this. 

A flow chart for a Section 21 doesn’t really tell the op anything. The notice to quit for SAT could be a bit tricky with the ish dates but the new PRT notice to leave has been created so that you don’t need to be a legal professional in order to complete it. Furthermore, if it’s a service the letting agency offer and charge for then they should know how to do it correctly. 

I think we need to live in the real world. s21 notices are highly technical documents. Most s21 notices are invalid. Especially those prepared by amateur landlords, letting agents or other non-legally qualified people.

The information I can find suggests that 70% or so of eviction cases are held up by incorrect s21 notices: https://www.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2016/10/up-to-70-of-eviction-notices-could-be-illegal-claims-law-firm?source=related_articles

I think anyone who is relying on a letting agent to guarantee that a s21 notice they have drawn up for a few quid is legally correct is kidding themselves. You don't take legal advice from a letting agent - you get that from a solicitor. Most of the time a technical issue with a defective s21 notice will never come to light as the tenant will leave of their own accord, but in cases where the tenant wishes to challenge the s21 notice or you need to go to court to evict, the landlord has to be alive to the risk that a defective s21 notice might need to be re-served.

Just like a landlord has to understand that a tenant does not need to leave the property just because a s21 notice has been served, and that it could be necessary to go through with eviction proceedings which take months. That is the risk you take when you open a lettings business - just like any other sort of business.

The position may be different in Scotland - I am only familiar with the position in England - but I would guess the same principles would apply.

Aranyani

BarleySugar said:

We’ve already offered financial help, but our tenants have a very narrow location specification and they have a recently got a dog (without our permission). The letting agents are finding the dog excludes them from most properties.

Why would they need your permission to get a dog?