Tenants' repair service Fixflo and housing lawyers Ashfords are issuing separate guidance on changes to how to serve a section 21 notice as a result of the passt of the the Deregulation Act 2015 in the dying days of the last parliament.
This is as a result of the political pressure to make so-called retaliatory evictions' more difficult.
Ashfords says that if a landlord is served with a Housing Act 2004 improvement notice in relation to category 1 or category 2 hazards, or an emergency remedial action notice under s40(7) of the Housing Act 2004, the landlord cannot serve a section 21 notice within six months of the Housing Act 2004 notice being served, or within six months of such a notice being suspended.
Any section 21 notice served by a landlord would be invalid if:
- before the landlord served the notice, the tenant had made a written complaint to the landlord (or the landlord's agent) about the condition of the dwelling-house;
- the landlord did not provide a response to the complaint within 14 days or provided an inadequate response (by not describing the remedial action to be taken nor setting out a reasonable timescale for such action);
- the landlord served a section 21 notice following the tenant's complaint;
- the tenant then complained to their local housing authority about the matter; and
- the local housing authority then served a Housing Act 2004 improvement/emergency remedial notice on the landlord.
Fixflo has produced this in the form of a graphic chart, available on its website, as well as a written version.
Fixflo's guidance to landlords and agents is:
- Written Repair Requests Will Become The Norm While you may have traditionally dealt with repair requests by telephone the Deregulation Act firmly steers both agents and tenants towards written repair requests. Get your process in place now so that you can educate your tenants on how they can communicate with you in writing.
- Tenants Don't Speak English The legislation provides for tenants to report repairs in writing but doesn't say that reports have to be in English. If you have a diverse tenant base get prepared for repair requests to come in different languages but to still trigger the 14 day "Adequate Response" period.
- Records Are Your Best Friend. With a clear trigger point and prescribed (time-bound) process for responding to repair requests, ensure that you securely archive each and every repair request you receive.
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Comments
Wait for the first tenant to report a repair in Klingon. Spam filters or the landlord/agent treats it as spam.