UK Landlord Forum / Life

My agent has issued a section 21 to my tenants as I have to sell up. The tenants have asked for an extension for what seem to be very understandable personal reasons.
I'm minded to allow that, but don't want to risk them not leaving on the new date. By giving them more time to find somewhere, I hope that's less likely though, and probably naively I hope that in gratitude for my flexibility, they will leave without causing me problems.

 I'll phone my legal helpline tomorrow, but in the meantime I'd be interested to have some opinions or experiences from people who might have offered this flexibility.

Your s21 notice has no legal effect on the tenants or the tenancy other than allowing you to begin a possession claim. They time out six months after service.

If you wanted your tenants to leave and were happy to be flexible, there was no reason (and not a lot of point) serving notice.

And "gratitude for my flexibility"? Seriously?

This is not relevant, whether you agree or not. There are no legal implications if you allow extra time. I have hardly ever served notice, but have been asked and agreed to extend dates a couple of times. If you refuse they can just take the extra time anyway, you can' t force them to go on the date named. Give up all ideas of gratitude, they are having to leave their home.   

Quote from: leels on April 06, 2025, 06:20:04 PM...and probably naively I hope that in gratitude for my flexibility, they will leave without causing me problems.

It's more about the people involved, if they have any cheek, appetite to trouble-cause, and their expectations. Your expectations do seem to border on the laughable as you are considering 'granting' something that they could just have anyway... more time... all while you're removing their home from under them because you can't financially manage being a Landlord. My only advice would be to deal with them respectfully and with kid gloves, it's a pretty major upheaval.

If a Tenant remains in a property beyond the end of the fixed term a Statutory Period Tenancy is created by virtue of Section 5 of the Housing Act 1988, so the extension is going to happen if they remain. 

If you can serve a legally perfect Section 21 (Form 6a) and all prerequisite documents were served (as explained in the Form 6a notes) then you will be in a position to commence court action at the end of the 60 clear days, otherwise you have to start over.

Time is of the essence because Section 21 will disappear soon

The most important financial prerequisite is that you fully complied with Section 213 in regard to Deposit Protection, because if you did not then the new SPT will effectively double any financial sanctions.

Small technicalities can lead to Section 21 failing, in fact I am seeing more technical failures than ever, these tend to be centred around Gas Certificate failures and Prescribed Information failures, for example Landlord not signing the PI and/or not serving new Tenants who became occupants during the Tenancy.

I have gone into more detail on the documents required on the post below.

https://www.landlordforumproject.co.uk/index.php?msg=40126

As always you hope for the best and plan for the worst, so it is right to issue the S21, but make sure the Agent used the current Form 6a and not some old form they had lurking on their hard disk or in a drawer of a filing cabinet.

Forget gratitude and flexibility, everyone is fundamentally selfish in the end.

Tenants are advised to drag things out for as long as possible, so while these initial reasons seem understandable, there may follow a series of rejections of your S21 every 60 days until you get it 100% right.  If you realise you have already screwed up because you made some assumption or other, simply start over by correcting the defect and serving the Form 6a again with a covering note saying it replaces the previous one.  Serve it three different ways and allow 63 days just to be sure legal service has been achieved.  Do not post by normal mail, use Royal Mail Special Delivery, as well as in person and email (making sure you have permission for service via email term in your agreement).

Always look at what they are looking at, this means all of the sections coming off the page below.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/eviction

Quote from: leels on April 06, 2025, 06:20:04 PMMy agent has issued a section 21 to my tenants as I have to sell up. The tenants have asked for an extension for what seem to be very understandable personal reasons.

I'm minded to allow that, but don't want to risk them not leaving on the new date. By giving them more time to find somewhere, I hope that's less likely though, and probably naively I hope that in gratitude for my flexibility, they will leave without causing me problems.

 I'll phone my legal helpline tomorrow, but in the meantime I'd be interested to have some opinions or experiences from people who might have offered this flexibility.

Thanks everyone. And yes, it was both naive and unempathetic of me to imagine that they'd be grateful for the stay of execution. I don't know why that even crossed my mind, in hindsight. I'm new to this and being a landlord, even for this relatively short period, is not by choice, but after a bereavement.

I've agreed to not take any court action until 1st August, and according to the agent, the tenant is very relieved. As for the rest, time will tell.

Thanks again

If you're dealing with a let property after the death of the original landlord, you pass the only valid meaning of accidental landlord, and you deserve more empathy. Apologies for being snippy.