Introduction
Since April 2009, landlords or agents should serve a letter before claim when planning court proceedings.
When to send letter
A section 8 notice is ideally served when a tenant is two months or more in arrears. However, a pre action letter could be sent earlier than this in order to save time.
Therefore, serve a pre action letter either when the tenant is at least one month in arrears, say, after two weeks arrears. Obviously, if you think they are likely to pay albeit late, there is no need for a letter. This should only be served when you think you might have to seek possession when they hit 2 months arrears.
If the tenant is already two months in arrears, it is best to get the section 8 notice served. However, you might be wise issuing the pre action letter the following day, so both letter and notice expire at roughly the same time, so as not to cause delays in commencing proceedings.
It is arguable that the section 8 notice alone will be sufficient without the need for an additional letter because the section 8 pretty much contains all the information needed in a letter. However, until this is formally decided, it is wise to also issue a letter.
Suggested letter
Hi
I don’t seem to be able to get the wording for the pre action letter for a section 8 notice.
Please could you email it to me at tracielee@taxassist.co.uk?
Regards
Tracie Lee
Has your advice changed between 2009 and 2014?
Our advice is still basically the same. If a section 8 is being served, I don’t think the pre-action letter is essential as it says here but the Civil Procedure Rules still say the same thing.
Many thanks
Guild of Residential Landlords
If it is a good idea to do it, would it be an idea to include this step in your possession wizard step? Especially if you hit the one month arrears position?
We will consider that. It’s just balancing making things as easy as possible without too many complications. We’ve never had our guidance as it is loose in court so far so I’m reluctant to make too many changes.
This article is really only for those that are merely threatening with a section 8 or time is not of the essence.
Many thanks
Guild of Residential Landlords
We understand ease of use is very important. Is your guidance that serving this form after the first month rent is two weeks overdue then allows you to serve the section 8 notice a day after the second month’s rent is overdue? Thus potentially saving you about 4 weeks of rent?
In our recent experience, if the Council are notified that the tenant has received LHA and has not passed on LHA received at the next rent due date they will suspend direct payments until they complete their investigations (gives tenant time to answer queries and make some payment of rent due).
Yes, that’s correct. Get the letter out of the way without wasting any time. If it meant loosing time, I would rather sacrifice the letter and take the risk because as I say the section 8 notice probably has enough information anyway.