UK Landlord Forum / Life

Dear all, hope everyone is ok.

I just registered to this forum due to having some legal issues with our tenants.

My partner and I own a property in Glasgow which was being rented by the same tenants for the past 3 years. The circumstances have changed and now me and my partner are looking to move back in the property. We asked our letting agent to serve the tenant the notice to leave according to the law. At the end of the notice period, tenants refused to leave and we had to seek advice from a lawyer in order to go to court to get an eviction notice.

Today our lawyer got back to us saying this:

"The letting agent have given too long a notice period by 3 days, which has in the past, invalidated the Notice served on the tenant. You therefore have two options at this stage, we can either proceed to lodge the application with the First-tier Tribunal, however it is very likely that they will raise this point."

According to the lawyer, there is a big risk of First-tier tribunal would dismiss our case because we have given too long a notice (87 days instead of 84 days). The lawyer, therefore, suggests that we send a new notice to the tenants (start from the beginning), which would mean another 3 months is wasted from our side, which puts us in a very difficult situation.

I am kind of shocked because I never thought giving more time than 84 days to tenants could be a problem. When I was renting flats, I always appreciated landlords giving me more time for me to find another place. I can't find any information online about this issue and I would really appreciate your help. Does anyone have heard of this before? Any advice?

Thanks very much.

Listen to the lawyer.

If the notice is given too early it can invalidate the notice.