Can S13 rent increase be served via WhatsApp photo?

[Gnewgnew2011]

Hi Everyone,

Quick question. Is S13 WhatsApp photo considered propertly served to the tenant? My Tenancy Agreement says under Notices section:

Any notice served upon the Tenant by the Landlord pursuant to this agreement or any statute or regulation must be served in writing and will be deemed sufficiently served if sent by registered post or first class post to or left at the Premises. Notices served by recorded delivery post, or prepaid first class post to the Premises, shall

be deemed to have been properly served and received by the Tenant on the second day after posting (or if that day is not a working day on the next working day), or in the case of notices left at the Premises on the next working day after delivery.

The Landlord and the Tenant agree that notices pursuant to this agreement may be served on the other party by email. The email addresses for notice are:

Landlord: xxxxxxxx

Tenant: xxxxxxxx

Notice served by email shall be deemed sufficiently served if it is sent to the Tenant or the Landlord at the email addresses identified above in this agreement and no notification of failure to deliver that email is received. Notices served by email will be deemed served on the next working day after sending.

The OpenRent guidance says:

*## How should you serve a Section 13 notice? *

Once you have filled out a Form 4, you will need to serve it on the tenant.

You can serve the notice through first-class post, hand delivery, or via a process server, unless the tenancy agreement indicates a specific method.

Now the agreement doesn’t mention anything specifically about rent increases, and it is a 1 month rolling already (after 12 months AST). Can I say that this notice wasn’t properly served?

Regards

[Karl11]

I assume you are a tenant. Rent increases can be agreed informally & the landlord need not issue a section 13 if you both agree.

If you don’t agree, then yes you could say it was incorrectly served. This is probably being ‘picky’ though & the Landlord may correctly issue another S13 with a greater increase.

If you feel the increase is fair in the market, accept it & move on.

[tatemono]

@Gnewgnew2011

Can I say that this notice wasn’t properly served?

If you wish to irritate your LL further by not only not paying the increase but also splitting hairs about the way the notice was served then it might be good to ask yourself what you would gain by this. But if a LL is using an S13, it’s only a matter of time before you either have to pay the increased rent or you start the process going to a rent tribunal.

At the end of the day, you will want to consider which is preferable: S13 or S21

[David122]

The notice is not properly served, but I would agree with Tatemono in that its not worth souring the relationshipas he will just re-serve it by email.