Landlord notice periods revert to pre-COVID lengths

News at Howard Independent Estate Agents | 01/10/2021

Notice periods for Section 21 and Section 8 notices will return to their pre-pandemic levels as of 1 October 2021.

The New Regulations

From 1 October 2021, the notice period required for Section 21 notices will be two months and Section 8 notices will revert back to only two weeks, based on rent arrears grounds 8, 10 and 11. However, the new regulations allow the UK Government to re-introduce longer notice periods if required until 25 March 2022.

For notices served before 1 October 2021...

If a landlord has served notice before 1 October 2021 they will still need to comply with the current rules so will typically require four months’ notice. So, if a notice has been served recently it may be worth re-serving it after 1st October 2021.

The new prescribed forms

There are new versions of Section 8 and Section 21 Notices for landlords and letting agents to use from 1 October 2021. Both the Form 6a (Section 21) and the Form 3 (Section 8) are prescribed forms so landlords must ensure they use the correct version before service.

It’s important to remember that, as per deemed service rules, this can mean that where current forms are not deemed as served until 1 October 2021 the form will be wrong and the notice will be invalid.

The notes from Form 3 will be moved onto a separate document which will be uploaded alongside Form 3 (as has already been done for Form 6A) and include information for the tenant at the start of the forms. These should be available to download from gov.uk on 1 October 2021.

Howard Estate Agents