UK Landlord Forum / Life

My relationship fell apart and I left my ex 3 years ago all my kids have now moved from the family home.
The house is in my sole name along with the mortgage and my ex and her boyfriend now lives there.

I have no verbal or written tenancy agreement with my ex she pays me rent which only covers the mortgage payments. I have given notice of my intention to return and use as my principle home and she refuses to leave.

I'm going to serve her notice to quit using section 8 form.

My question am I correct that I only need to give her 14 days from serve of notice before apply to the courts for a 'possession order'. ?

You need legal advice.
Not advice from a forum - because it's going to depend entirely on what the facts are, and what you can prove they are.
And no one here (as far as I know) is qualified to advise (especially me)!

While if your names on the deeds, you almost certainly own the property.
But this is a really complex area of land law - nothing really to do with renting.

Assuming you weren't married to your ex (in which case things are just more complex),
your ex might be able to claim that she has been contributing financially to a property which you effectively abandoned more than two years ago (i.e. it wasn't really "rent".
And that, therefore, she has an occupancy right for a period - which a court would decide.
A lot would depend on where your children lived for that time and all kinds of other factors.
Get legal advice.

If you give her a 14 day notice, she might simply leave.
However, I don't see how you can use a section 8 notice unless they've stopped paying rent (or are doing something that they agreed not to in your verbal agreement).

If you don't have any verbal or written tenancy agreement, you can't issue a section 8 notice at all - as they're a remedy for breaching the contract (which doesn't exist).
You'll need a different process to evict them.
Get legal advice.

And again to really prove the point of why a forum isn't the right place for advice.

I disagree!

If no formal agreement has been signed it is ASSUMED in law that a standard AST has been signed.

Why not just give her 2 months notice the standard of an AST coming to an end?

That to me seems fairer.

As JP says, you don't want to go to court and start arguing about "joint" wifey type stuff, there in lies madness!

Good point about the verbal agreement.

If I were the ex, it would suit me that no verbal agreement had been entered into.
Both parties have to intend to form a contract - my relationships don't end like that!

However, if there was a verbal agreement to pay rent, 2 months notice would be sensible.

Disagreements don't stop the advice being useful (some things don't have one right answer).
8-)

Some arguments have two sides, many posters only have one.....post!