Possession proceedings

If you are a landlord wishing to gain possession of your property, there are two procedures that may be used. These are as follows:

Section 8 Notices

These are primarily used to recover possession based on rent arrears (which need to be in excess of 2 months arrears, although there are other grounds which can be used as the basis of a section 8 notice).

This use of a section 8 procedure allows the landlord to recover possession of the property and recover any outstanding rent by way of judgment debt.  In the notice seeking possession, the tenant would be given  two weeks to bring the arrears up to date, after which time proceedings would be brought for both a possession order (to obtain possession of the property) and a monetary judgment in respect of the rent arrears.

Having successfully obtained an order for possession, as your solicitor, we may then need to apply to the Court for a warrant of possession if the tenant stays in the property beyond the date specified in the Court order.

Section 21 Notice

Contrastingly, a Section 21 Notice is a no fault procedure to recover possession. Under the section 21 procedure, you must give the tenant at least two months’ written notice that you require possession of the property. The procedure does not require you to prove an element of tenant default, but simply to show that the correct procedure has been followed (and that certain documents have been provided to the tenant).

The benefit of issuing the section 21 notice is that you are not usually required to undergo a Court hearing in order to regain possession, as the Court will deal with the claim on paper except in exceptional circumstances.  However, the limitation of this approach is that you will not be able to recover any rent in arrears in the court proceedings for possession.

The final option available to you would be to issue a section 8 and section 21 notice simultaneously, without one prejudicing the other.  This has the advantage that, if the grounds relied upon under the section 8 notice were not successful, the section 21 notice would act as a fall-back position, under which you would still be able to regain possession.

We offer work on a fixed fee basis for possession work; if you would like more information or wish to discuss matters, please call the team on 023 8071 7412.