Question

During the Tenancy (England) | England | Nuisance and Anti-social Behaviour (England)

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014

24 May 2021 | 1 comment

The local police have informed me they are going to try and close a property I manage under Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. They will aim to shut the premises for a minimum of 3 months. The tenants are in a fixed term until the end of June 2021. They have informed me it is likely we will know the outcome in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, presuming they shut it down for 3 months, do I need to physically serve a section 8 notice on the closed down property? (if it happens of course). I understand the ground is mandatory, but I presume I need to serve the notice on the closed down property and immediately (no notice required) start court proceedings online.

Answer

1 Comment

  1. guildy

    The ground would be 7A and condition 4:

    Condition 4 is that—

    (a) the dwelling-house is or has been subject to a closure order under section 80 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and

    (b) access to the dwelling-house has been prohibited (under the closure order or under a closure notice issued under section 76 of that Act) for a continuous period of more than 48 hours.

    Notice cannot be served until after 48 hours after it’s been closed (note the requirement in (b) above). After 48 hours from closure, the section 8 can be served which must be at least one month in length plus 4 days for service. In addition, it must expire on the day before a rent is payable.

    For example, if the property is closed today (24th May) and rent is payable on 15th of every month, the notice could be served 27th May earliest and would expire 14th July (27 May + 1 month = 27 June + rounded up to next day before rent = 14 July).

    Although we’ve mentioned 27 May as an example above, you should wait for the new form and rules which start on 1 June onwards (but you’ve to wait for closure order anyway so not a problem).

    Finally, the notice must be served within 3 months of the closure order commencing for that ground to work.

    Once all done, you’re right, it’s a mandatory claim and should be fairly straightforward because all that’s needed from what we can see is a copy of the closure order and possession should just be ordered at the hearing.

    Our possession wizard doesn’t handle ground 7A (but might take a look and add this in the future) so you will need to use the form from .gov website (but wait until after 1 June) and the whole of ground 7A will need to be entered which can be found here.

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