When to Serve Notice
When you can serve an eviction notice, and the amount of warning (“notice period”) that you have to give the tenant, will depend on whether you are serving a Section 8 Notice or Section 21 Notice.
Landlords are required to provide a minimum of 2 months’ notice when serving a Section 21 notice. If you are serving a Section 8 notice, the length of the required notice period will depend on the ground that you are relying on to evict the tenant. Different grounds require different notice periods.
How to Serve Notice
OpenRent’s Section 21 Notice Tool
If you are serving a Section 21 Notice, then you can use OpenRent’s Section 21 Notice Serving Tool. This tool is available free of charge to all landlords - whether you used Rent Now to set up the tenancy or not.
The tool will run you through the necessary requirements for serving a valid Section 21 Notice so you can be sure that the notice has been served correctly and that you will be able to rely on it later down the line should you need to. If you did use Rent Now to set up the tenancy, then we will have made sure that a number of the necessary requirements were complied with at the beginning of the tenancy, and point out what else is needed.
Before using the tool, please note that if you did not use Rent Now to set up the tenancy, you should first of all check your tenancy agreement to see whether the tenant has agreed to accept service by email. If you are using Rent Now, then the OpenRent tenancy agreement includes a clause in which the tenant explicitly agrees to accept service by email.
Once completed we will serve each of the tenants with the notice using the email addresses that they provided in the tenancy agreement.
After using the tool you will also be prompted to print and serve the notice using one of the following methods:
- Personal delivery - through the letterbox of the property (this will be legally received the following business day)
- First class post (this will be legally received 2 business days after it has been sent)
We strongly recommend that you do this and keep evidence (see below).
Serving a Section 8 Notice
Unfortunately we don’t currently have a Section 8 Notice Serving tool for landlords.
Therefore, as above, you will need to serve notice by:
- email (after checking that the tenancy agreement includes a clause allowing you to serve notice by email) and/or by either:
- Personal delivery - through the letterbox of the property(this will be legally received the following business day)
- First class post (this will be legally received 2 business days after it has been sent)
Evidence of Serving Notice
It is very important that you keep evidence of when the notice was served. This will be very important if you have to make a possession application further down the line.
The evidence you need will depend on the manner in which notice was served. Your evidence can include:
- a time-stamped photograph of the Section 21 notice and a further photograph of it being posted through the door of the property
- proof of postage to the correct address
In addition to the above methods, you can also complete a certificate of service (N215 form) which will again be useful if you need to make a possession application.
Information on this site is by way of general guidance only and may not apply in your particular circumstances. You should not act or refrain from acting upon information on this site without seeking independent legal advice.