a tenant went into hospital and went into arrears. The family advised he would need care for a long time and there was no one else who could cover rent so we served a section 21. Apart from losing any income the house was no longer suitable and a section 21 can help the tenant get assistance…. so house vacated… busy doing up the house and I get an aggressive call from a council 100 miles away from the rental property demanding all the information accompanying the section 21. I advised them to put any request in writing (pending getting legal advice). They then said if I dont provide the information they would assume it was an illegal eviction with a threat of follow up court action. Now I believe we did everything correctly, eicr, right to rent, Epc, proof of posting etc but of course the slightest error can knock it all out. Now I dont know if they are entitled to this or whether they are just fishing. I do know consequences can be severe for illegal eviction. I assume this particular council has been applied to by the tenant for supported living accommodation and they think its worth a punt at the landlord or the tenant has made up some stories but this scenario is a first for me and wondered if others had experienced anything similar. I dont intend to respond without proper legal advice but am frankly pretty shocked at this aggressive behaviour from a distant council and whether there would even be a burden of proof on the landlord after the property has been vacated. For interest the family took everything of value and left the property in a mess full of rubbish, vandalised things like pulling light fittings out of the ceilings and pulling off kitchen cupboards, ripping curtains and curtain tracks off the walls, stealing carpets etc.
wow… comiserations… that sounds an awful shock out of the blue. My take from this is that it’s always best to use a solicitor for S21 (or whatever we’re left with under RRB) so that you can make sure that you have a trail of paperwork backed up by a professional. It’s not 100% infallible but I would sure not want to find that I’d made a slight error because of ignorance which could come back to bite me.
Hopefully you’ll get some good legal advice to fend this off. SOrry I can’t offer any advice… only sympathy.
The reason they are asking for this information is they are obliged to house a no fault eviction .
If you’d have served a s8 they would not care.
It is for the courts to judge an illegal eviction not the council. They have no legal standing over the matter. If the tenants not fighting it what’s the problem .
The s21 was served to the tenant . They want the evidence all documents were served so they can call an illegal eviction. It’s cheaper to trip you up than house the tenant. GDPR gets you out of it ; the tenant doesn’t give you permission to share their data !
You need to provide evidence it was served to the tenant etc . Well you don’t have permission from the tenant to share it …
I was in a similar situation when they were aggressive with me , I told them it was for rent arrears. I sent her all the emails over 2 years and I never heard from them again. Rent arrears meant they didn’t have to prioritise housing the tenant.
I would write back with legal counsel advises I’m prohibited by GDPR as my return email and see what happens.
That’ll save you solicitors fee etc etc
If no luck then waste money with a solicitor
they are trying their luck so you try yours .
The other option is if you paperwork is tight send them the In for but what I’ve learnt is they are fighting you
The onus is on them to prove you committed an illegal act . So why give them evidence . If they want to fight it then they can prove it’s illegal ;without any evidence how can they ?
If you didnt go through the courts process, then it may be an illegal eviction. S21 does not end the tenancy. If a tenant moves out as a result of a s21 notice then their tenancy has ended by Implied Surrender. In other words the tenant and you have both behaved as though the tenancy is over. If a tenant is in hospital then this is not possible and they would have to agree to surrender in some other way. A signed deed is usually best. I’d suggest you revisit the evidence you have which led you to believe the tenancy was at an end.
Why do you begrudge decent hardworking responsible people?
Maybe the mental hospital with stress . ( to Envious K)
Yes it’s very sad Kai, but thankyou for your comment. the tenant was actually running Airbnb ie subletting (excluded in AST) and he got into a serious fight with one of these people. We are picking up the pieces and managed to rehouse the dogs as they were simply left behind. The neighbours were relieved though as they had called out the police several times late at night as they did not have the quiet enjoyment of their property and were both working people during the day.
I think starting it off noting that the tenant is in the hospital so went to arrears was in poor taste. Sometimes people fall into bad situations and recover
If the tenant was not living there and you have evidence of that fact, the tenancy would not be assured and common law rules apply.
the OP simply described the situation as it occurred. Nothing perjorative about it. The family advised that they would not recover. Don’t really see what else the OP could have done. No need to weigh in heavily against the OP @Kai8
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