Serving Section 21 - missing Gas Safety Certificate

HampshireH

So, did your agent actually serve. S.21 originally? Why only now are they worrying about the gas cert.......why not then?

I can't believe any agent would be so careless as to dispose of this (it's yours not theirs so not even sure why they would be doing this without consent, they should just have them on file - better still scanned in) or that your boiler man doesn't have a copy.

Most are input into a computer system of some type to ensure accurate record keeping /backside is covered if ever the need arose 

If you haven't already I would ask for a copy of all records the agent holds for you incase anything else disappears which you may need. 

Things like the EPC are centrally stored which is handy so no reliance on the agent for this. (Doesn't help your s.21 but may help your sale if any further questions come up)

greatcrested

HampshireH said:

I can't believe any agent would be so careless as to dispose of this (it's yours not theirs so not even sure why they would be doing this without consent, they should just have them on file - better still scanned in) or that your boiler man doesn't have a copy.

Indeed. Though interestingly I've just checked the HSE website which says:

How long do I have to keep records?

You have to keep records for at least two years. For more information see regulation 36(3)(c) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.

But that of course is to satisfy HSE Regs, not tenancy and evictio leglislation!

Bodkin64

greatcrested said

Indeed. Though interestingly I've just checked the HSE website which says:

How long do I have to keep records?

You have to keep records for at least two years. For more information see regulation 36(3)(c) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.

But that of course is to satisfy HSE Regs, not tenancy and evictio leglislation!

Yes I saw that too; it does seem like an extraordinary inconsistency in the law to me!

jemima82

Malcyb said:

jemima82 said:

Are your tenants only wanting a council house because you want them out? If they’ve been good tenants and paying the rent in full for five years, is it possible that they’d be happy renting elsewhere?

If so, you could try to come to an agreement for them to leave in exchange for return of deposit (if applicable) plus next deposit & first month’s rent.

I’ve very little experience of renting, however it must be destabilising not knowing how long you’re going to be in one place. I think we’ve been (relatively) good landlords and made life fairly straightforward for them for 5 years, that might not be the case with their next private rental. Perhaps a last resort might be to reach some kind of agreement like that if all else fails.

Well...yes. I imagine they could be feeling quite destabilised.

I can’t see that you’ve clarified whether it was an actual S21 issued 6 months ago, or some other form of ‘notice’. Either way, you’ll have a (n optimistic) minimum of 6 months before finding out if the S21 is valid (+6 months if no S21 has been issued yet). 

So it could be worth seeing what their perspective is, if time is of the essence. 

[Deleted User]

Malcyb said:

greatcrested said:

I'm not familiar with council housing application processes.

Do councils expect all tenants to automatically contest every S21? I find that unlikely, but really don't know.

I mean, if a S21 is served correctly, with all the conditions met, does the council still expect a tenant to waste the court's time contesting it? And what grounds are the tenant supposed to use in their contest if there are no valid grounds? I mean, it makes no sense.

And if it is not an automatic requirement for the tenant to contest the S21, then assuming the court awarded the landlord the possession order, how would the council know whether a valid ground to object could have been presented to the court? Unless the council duplicates the court's work by checking all 88 questions in the S21 validity checker themselves in order to verify the court's decision......

The process does seem to be a bizarre waste of everyone’s time if a lot of tenants really are just using it to get a council house, there has to be a better way that doesn’t simply line solicitors pockets. Anyway thanks for your comments, I feel a bit better educated to go into discussion with our solicitor now.

The process has been designed so that you don't need to use a solicitor. Tenants needing advice can contact an organisation like Shelter.  Social housing is in short supply so councils are essentially using the eviction process as a means of gate keeping people because there just aren't enough council or HA homes available.

Your tenants might be in for a bit of a shock if they end up in temporary accommodation.  Like @greatcrested the missing GSC is a red herring.  You want the tenants out, the tenants appear to want to leave in order to get social housing so I don't see them contesting it and councils don't have the resources to contest possession orders or try and get them over turned.

[Deleted User]

As an ex private rental tenant, who moved on to social housing .., I did not contest the S21.  It wouldn't have done any good as eventually the S21 would have been successful, and the council definitely did not demand that I should (not everyone would have grounds to contest it so that is nonsensical thinking).  I had a bit of a bad experience with my LL promising repairs and not doing them, he was a bit of a piece of work so I too wanted the stability and reduced stress of having social housing.  It is also true that social housing is only 1/3 of the cost of private rental, I was having to top up my HLA by £150 a month. Rents have continued to go up, it would be at least a £300 top up now. No I don't live in London, 12 miles away but there was a period when people from London were moving here, which caused an oversupply of tenants for even private housing.  Rents doubled over 4 years.  Literally.

However, I believe only someone who had little option would apply for social housing.  It was the most stressful thing I have ever done, with the council playing mind games (called gatekeeping) to put tenants off applying for social housing. I did not know if they'd give me housing for certain until the time they handed me the keys for the property they were allocating me.  That was 3 hours after the bailiffs had evicted us, when I went to council office along with my baggage.  It was awful.  Most people, if they apply for social housing will initially be given emergency housing, and that could be miles away in another borough, and usually single room housing (hostel) or B&B.  You can be moved from one place to another. In my area, it was impossible to find a LL who would take tenants on benefits (there were far more people needing to rent than places to rent, why the rents were so high) but the council kept telling me to find a private rental at HLA rates (which was only 2/3 of the lowest possible rent).  They must have known the impossibility of their suggestion, yet they still sent these letters out several times.  How I didn't have a stroke I will never know, the stress levels were incredibly high.  We are all autistic.., the process had no sympathy for that. Couldn't move to a cheaper area because services were being supplied for my sons in the area we lived in, would have been very difficult to start it all up again elsewhere with no support, finding specialist schools of the right kind etc.

Its certainly no picnic applying for social housing.  In my area, you can expect to wait years for permanent housing. I was lucky, because there were disabilities in the household I was only in emergency housing for two years but that was unusual.  You have to be able to demonstrate that the council has a duty to house you.., which means you have to have a need (like have children or a disability) that makes the council responsible for housing you.  We had no choice as to where the social housing was, if you were homeless you had one permanent offer and that was it.  You could only appeal it after moving.  

And to add to it all, we were given a council property as emergency housing because I was able to demonstrate moving to single room housing would be unsafe for my kids because of their lack of social skills (this decision had to go to a medical board), and it was infested with cockroaches.  Thousands of them.  They were eventually all cleared but it took two months.  Now we are in permanent social housing, the rent is £400 a month rather than £1,200 but if I had had another option I would have jumped at it in spite of feeling that social housing would be more stable. To get to that stability you had to be prepared to live on your nerves while the council is looking at your case.  Obviously its in their best interests to find they don't have a duty to house you because of the lack of social housing.


And to make things even more fun, councils are allowed to put you into private housing instead of social housing.  They have found you housing either way, so their duty to house you ends.  So you can still have the same problems of instability.  

You only do all that if you have no choice. In  the end, we were given permanent social housing but there is no guarantee at all that that is what will happen. Because rents are so low, the council do do more repairs than my private LL did, this place has a working boiler so it is warm, but its no holiday home trying to remove textured plaster from 4m high hallways walls (its either glued on with superglue or falling off the walls, whatever the previous tenant did, it wasn't well done) that I am still working on, with a lot of pain.  The council won't remove it because its decorating.  However the private rental I moved from was very cold (with an antique boiler), I had to put insulation in it, the LL refused, the flooring was all ripped (obviously I supplied the flooring here lol) this is better. The council probably won't refuse to do a roof repair until the ceiling falls in (it happened in the private rental) and you don't need an indoors shower anymore!  I don't have a private LL threatening to sell for two years.  Sending me texts saying he was evicting me if I asked for a repair.  But dealing with council repairs, even if you do stand some hope of them being done., is not easy.  Council's don't go for high bidders when giving repair jobs out lol. I am still quite often just getting on with it myself if I can. God forbid you should want to do anything that 'changes' the property (not sure what the definition actually is of a change, its more than removing walls).., you have to go before a board for that too.  I have a bathroom I can't put a shower in, with again, pebble dash painted walls, no plaster and I can't even tile it.

But I am still lucky.  You just have to be aware its not the holiday park people think. 

Bodkin64

deannatrois said:

As an ex private rental tenant, who moved on to social housing .., I did not contest the S21.  It wouldn't have done any good as eventually the S21 would have been successful, and the council definitely did not demand that I should (not everyone would have grounds to contest it so that is nonsensical thinking).  I had a bit of a bad experience with my LL promising repairs and not doing them, he was a bit of a piece of work so I too wanted the stability and reduced stress of having social housing.  It is also true that social housing is only 1/3 of the cost of private rental, I was having to top up my HLA by £150 a month. Rents have continued to go up, it would be at least a £300 top up now. No I don't live in London, 12 miles away but there was a period when people from London were moving here, which caused an oversupply of tenants for even private housing.  Rents doubled over 4 years.  Literally.

However, I believe only someone who had little option would apply for social housing.  It was the most stressful thing I have ever done, with the council playing mind games (called gatekeeping) to put tenants off applying for social housing. I did not know if they'd give me housing for certain until the time they handed me the keys for the property they were allocating me.  That was 3 hours after the bailiffs had evicted us, when I went to council office along with my baggage.  It was awful.  Most people, if they apply for social housing will initially be given emergency housing, and that could be miles away in another borough, and usually single room housing (hostel) or B&B.  You can be moved from one place to another. In my area, it was impossible to find a LL who would take tenants on benefits (there were far more people needing to rent than places to rent, why the rents were so high) but the council kept telling me to find a private rental at HLA rates (which was only 2/3 of the lowest possible rent).  They must have known the impossibility of their suggestion, yet they still sent these letters out several times.  How I didn't have a stroke I will never know, the stress levels were incredibly high.  We are all autistic.., the process had no sympathy for that. Couldn't move to a cheaper area because services were being supplied for my sons in the area we lived in, would have been very difficult to start it all up again elsewhere with no support, finding specialist schools of the right kind etc.

Its certainly no picnic applying for social housing.  In my area, you can expect to wait years for permanent housing. I was lucky, because there were disabilities in the household I was only in emergency housing for two years but that was unusual.  You have to be able to demonstrate that the council has a duty to house you.., which means you have to have a need (like have children or a disability) that makes the council responsible for housing you.  We had no choice as to where the social housing was, if you were homeless you had one permanent offer and that was it.  You could only appeal it after moving.  

And to add to it all, we were given a council property as emergency housing because I was able to demonstrate moving to single room housing would be unsafe for my kids because of their lack of social skills (this decision had to go to a medical board), and it was infested with cockroaches.  Thousands of them.  They were eventually all cleared but it took two months.  Now we are in permanent social housing, the rent is £400 a month rather than £1,200 but if I had had another option I would have jumped at it in spite of feeling that social housing would be more stable. To get to that stability you had to be prepared to live on your nerves while the council is looking at your case.  Obviously its in their best interests to find they don't have a duty to house you because of the lack of social housing.


And to make things even more fun, councils are allowed to put you into private housing instead of social housing.  They have found you housing either way, so their duty to house you ends.  So you can still have the same problems of instability.  

You only do all that if you have no choice. In  the end, we were given permanent social housing but there is no guarantee at all that that is what will happen. Because rents are so low, the council do do more repairs than my private LL did, this place has a working boiler so it is warm, but its no holiday home trying to remove textured plaster from 4m high hallways walls (its either glued on with superglue or falling off the walls, whatever the previous tenant did, it wasn't well done) that I am still working on, with a lot of pain.  The council won't remove it because its decorating.  However the private rental I moved from was very cold (with an antique boiler), I had to put insulation in it, the LL refused, the flooring was all ripped (obviously I supplied the flooring here lol) this is better. The council probably won't refuse to do a roof repair until the ceiling falls in (it happened in the private rental) and you don't need an indoors shower anymore!  I don't have a private LL threatening to sell for two years.  Sending me texts saying he was evicting me if I asked for a repair.  But dealing with council repairs, even if you do stand some hope of them being done., is not easy.  Council's don't go for high bidders when giving repair jobs out lol. I am still quite often just getting on with it myself if I can. God forbid you should want to do anything that 'changes' the property (not sure what the definition actually is of a change, its more than removing walls).., you have to go before a board for that too.  I have a bathroom I can't put a shower in, with again, pebble dash painted walls, no plaster and I can't even tile it.

But I am still lucky.  You just have to be aware its not the holiday park people think. 

Wow, put that way I wonder if our tenant is doing the right thing. But hopefully he has some idea what he’s letting himself in for. thanks anyway for clarifying how the process works from the tenant’s perspective.

GDB2222

I am afraid that the very first thing that you should do is increase the rent to the very highest level that you can possibly justify. There is a formal notice for doing that which your solicitor can help you with. There’s also a procedure for the tenant to contest it.

This has a practical beneficial impact for you in several ways. For example, the property is more attractive to sell on to an investor. The tenant is less comfortable and more likely to move of his own accord if the S21 is unsuccessful.

[Deleted User]

Hmm with months until the tenant can move out (via a possession order and bailiffs warrant).., that might have some benefit to the LL but actually cause a great deal of problems for the tenant.  Yes, being a LL is a business, but its not a punishment station.

pinkshoes

How about you go and speak to your tenant and take round tea and cake?

They want a council house, and the only way they can do that is to be evicted via the court, wait for bailiffs to physically evict them, and present themselves homeless to the council. Do they know the procedure? Is there any suitable housing in the area? (as they might end up in very grotty temporary accommodation).

The best way is for them not to contest the S21, then taking it to court for eviction, then getting the bailiffs in. This process is feasibly going to take a year, so if you're not willing to wait that long (make it clear to your tenants that they need to keep paying their rent as otherwise you will then issue and S8 and the council will deem them to have made themselves homeless...) then you might need to consider an investment buyer and a reduced price.

Good luck!