Possession Orders
There are two basic types of possession order.
- Absolute possession orders, where the court orders possession on one of the Mandatory Grounds or when the landlord is exercising their shorthold rights to possession using Section 21. These are non negotiable directives to quit the property by a certain date.
- Suspended possession orders, where a Discretionary Ground has been used, and the court may decide to allow the tenant to stay on, so long as they meet certain conditions set down by the court. If these conditions are breached, clearly your landlord/agent can go straight back to court.
Once a possession order has been granted, it will specify the exact date that a tenant must leave by. If the tenant doesn’t go, the landlord simply goes back to court, pays a small fee and court appointed bailiffs will arrive to evict you.
A Harsh, Rarely Recognised Reality
One of the sadder reasons that tenants end up behind with their rent is when they lose their jobs. If this happens to you, get straight onto your landlord/agent and explain. Many (especially those who regularly deal with cheaper units) will understand the time lag between genuine Housing Benefit applications and your benefit actually arriving. Most will ask you to ensure that cheques reach them direct, rather than via your own hands and that seems a reasonable tradeoff for their
considerable patience. As an industry we’ve been complaining for years about these ridiculously long periods of time for Housing Benefit arrival – but no one listens!
Some landlords/agents will ask you to leave because they have a policy of not accepting unemployed tenants full stop. Others will bide their time. Some will say yes, then hassle you, week on week making your life even more difficult. If this happens, ask for paperwork from the Housing Benefit team to reassure your landlord that things are crawling along – otherwise they may get agitated and start serving notices to quit.
However, some people don’t always get great choices in life. Few young people would get much more than hysterical laughter if they asked for council/housing association accommodation and so they, in particular, are
forced into the private rental sector – a purely commercial service that exists exclusively to make a profit. You may find an understanding landlord, but we are certainly not social workers. Plus, modern rentals are relatively expensive for people on low wages.
That means that they get no housing help/temporary shelter. In other words, sometimes the only way that a tenant in trouble can get
any choice but sleeping in the rain is to remain until the bitter end–infuriating landlords and agents who don’t understand the complexity of local authority processes. It’s bureaucracy at its absolute worst – but it’s today’s maddening reality.
Accelerated Possession Procedures
These may be used by landlords to speed up the legal process, but only if the tenant has a written tenancy agreement and your fixed
term has expired (including when your tenancy has continued on to become a statutory periodic). Your landlord must give you the appropriate written notice and follow correct procedure. There are special rules that apply to this fast track possession process, and tenants in receipt of notice of accelerated possession proceedings should seek pretty prompt legal advice.
Grounds For Possession
A Ground is a legal reason. A
Mandatory Ground is one where the court
must grant a possession order to the landlord. A
Discretionary Ground is one where the court
may grant a possession order to the landlord. Some of these grounds require prior notice to have been served on the tenant before the tenancy was agreed, in order to forewarn tenants that the landlord might apply to the court. Seek legal advice wherever you are unsure of your position.