If You Are Still In Your Fixed Term

The landlord/agent can only apply to the court for a possession order on quite limited grounds until it ends. S/he cannot exercise their guaranteed right until the fixed term ends. But s/he can still successfully use other legal grounds if you’re breaking the terms you agreed to keep. To do this, landlords/agents use specific legal procedures provided by the 1988 Housing Act and strengthened in 1996 to protect landlords from tenants who deliberately misuse their property.

However applications to courts are not frivolous things. Landlords/ agents tend only to act if tenants have given them some really good reason to do so. For those tenants with a fixed term that has still not expired, your landlord can only apply to the court for possession on Grounds 2, 8, 10, 15 and 17, and only if the tenancy agreement made provision for it.

If You Have A Contractual Periodic Tenancy

Your landlord can apply to the court at any time from the start of the tenancy on a wider range of grounds. But again, these legal grounds are significant breaches of the lease – all in your own hands. If s/he is exercising their Section 21 right, where s/he’s guaranteed possession that ‘right’ still cannot be exercised until six months have elapsed since the beginning of the tenancy. Again, you are entitled to two months’ written notice for the guaranteed right, but not for some of the major breaches of contract. When tenancies have been problematic, expect this two months’ notice to drop through the letterbox after four months.

Is Two Months’ Written Notice Always Required?

No. Other applications for possession due to breaches of lease can be much shorter, from as little as two weeks. A full list together with the timescales involved is available at the end of this Lesson.

Some tenancies break down completely, and very acrimoniously. This is almost without exception because one party or another is behaving badly. It may be the last thing that someone wants to hear, but when things have reached this stage, it really often is the best thing to move on. Use the notice period to find somewhere else to live.

On the other hand, sometimes, perfectly friendly tenancies are concluded because the fixed term has expired, and no agreement on a new rent can be reached.

Tenants told to leave without written notice, or worse just ordered out, should seek immediate advice from their local housing department, law centre or CAB – or call out the police. Your landlord simply cannot order you out, nor pack your things and move them out.

All tenants still enjoy the legal right to stay in place until the court has both granted a possession order and the court has then enforced it–never the landlord direct. It remains the exclusive right of the court both to grant and enforce possession orders. At the bottom end of the market, some deeply disturbing things happen to tenants. These are covered in Lesson 13, Harassment and Illegal Eviction.

What To Do Next

Don’t assume however that because you have to leave that you need necessarily have further problems. Tenants who have been given notice can, if they have caused no damage, left no debts, and left the property in the same condition as they accepted it, fully expect and are still legally entitled to their deposit refund once all legitimate liabilities have been settled. Follow the advice in the previous lessons, and claim your refund.

Cutting Your Losses

Deposit refunds will obviously be more difficult if the landlord wants possession because you have damaged their property or owe small fortunes in rent. Tenants who have lost their home because they have behaved badly should seriously consider cutting their losses. Landlords/ agents with a valid possession order are not about to take your conduct lying down.

If you owe rent or have caused damage beyond the limit of your deposit, landlords/agents are able to additionally sue you in the county court for all outstanding debts plus owed rent – and they are likely to get a favourable response. You could end up with the distinction of having lost your home, all your deposit, plus having to pay extra to your landlord and having a County Court judgement recorded against you. Hardly ideal, and rather difficult to find somewhere else to live, given the common use of tenant blacklists and credit rating services.

However, in all cases, whatever the grounds for possession and however long or short the notice period must be, the landlord/agent is always obliged to give the tenant a form of written notice.

Beyond the notice – I emphasise again – landlords/agents must use courts for possession and court bailiffs for evictions. No landlord can act directly – not under any circumstances whatsoever.