In any residential possession claim for property on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, the Court will be careful to scrutinise the notice served under s.8 of the Housing Act 1988. As all practitioners will be aware, this notice will set out the grounds of possession, as found in Schedule 2 of that Act, on which the Landlord relies.
The Court has no power to waive a landlord’s failure to comply with the statutory requirements in a s.8 notice (minor defects may be interpreted away under the Mannai test: see Pease v Carter [2020] EWCA Civ 175). As such, if the Landlord has not complied with the statutory requirements in respect of that notice, this can leave the possession claim in a precarious position. It may result in the claim being dismissed and the Landlord having to start the process again with a fresh notice being served.
This note assumes that the s.8 notice has been found to be invalid and explores the effect of this finding on a claim for
possession of residential premises based on the Tenant’s failure to pay rent.
The grounds for possession based on rent arrears. There are three grounds of possession concerned with rent arrears:
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