UK Landlord Forum / Life

I'm finding it difficult to manage our rented house which was my home b4 I married. My husband managed it until recently.  for the past 3yrs, both of us are not in good health and quite old. I had bypass op and My husband is bedridden and has dementia for the past 18 month following a stroke. To cut a long story short, we didn't get round to getting a lease done for just these past 2yrs. I'm finding it very difficult to manage the house. The property is not in good condition and in summer I found it difficult to get builders to come to attend to repairs.
Normally one tenant collects the rent and pays us every month. Now he is leaving. And I've decided that I would like to sell up.
If I had lease I would have served notice. As I don't have one I understand from my research that I can ask the tenants to vacate the property under section 8 (haven't looked at it yet).
Also I've now got a tenant who hasn't paid his deposit and he also doesn't pay on time. I just can't deal with such problems any more.
So I would like them all to leave. We have bn a good landlord always. Can I give them notice to vacate on grounds of our inability 2 manage and wishing to sell up. I do know that I must follow procedures. Is section 8 the only procedure? Is this all I have to do?

Thanking you all in advance.

Section 8 is what you would typically use if you want to evict a Tenant for something like rent arrears (and other various reasons - Grounds). Take a look at this webpage for a plain English description of Section 8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_Notice

If you want to look at rent arrears, take a look at Grounds 8, 10 and 11. The catch with a Section 8 is that the Tenant can put in a defence of disrepair. You have commented that the property is not in its best condition, so there is a risk there.

The alternative route to evict Tenants is the Section 21. This is a no-reason no-fault eviction notice. To serve a Section 21 correctly it must expire outside the fixed term of the tenancy agreement, it must give the Tenant at least 2 months notice and you must have followed the deposit protection rules properly.

Then, after serving a correct Section 21, the Tenant will either leave or you will be able to go to Court to apply for possession.

If you are not interested in those options - you could try to sell the property to another Landlord (via a normal estate agent) as a "going concern" with Tenants in place... yes, you might not get the best price, but maybe you don't care too much about that at this stage. It seems like a professional Landlord is needed to take this on and you can forget about it.

If you are unclear about all of this - some, paid-for, time spent with a property expert Solicitor might be time and money well spent. I believe a verbal Tenancy Agreement is still a valid agreement, but it would - obviously - be better if you had a written, signed one.

Thank you, Hippogriff.
I've noted your advice and have passed the matter over to a property solicitor.
I also talked to the tenants and explained my sitsouation. Two have said they will move out. Haven't heard from the tenant who hasn't paid the deposit. Also explained that I wanted everything done properly thru a solicitor.
So thank you.
I do wish I had come across this site b4 now. It's very good. I hope I won't be one post wonder as I'm hoping to give some money to our daughter for a BTL.