Hi,
Does anyone have any experience or advice as to what may constitute an example of the type of conduct that would fall under Ground 12 or Ground 13 of a valid section 8 notice? I’m thinking here about hanging pictures up on the walls of a property when the AST says that no changes should be made to the property.
Thanks!
I haven’t had experience of this myself fortunately but read around this subject a bit when I first became a Landlord.
The impression I get is that you’ll find it difficult to evict for something like hanging pictures I;m afraid. Unless it’s caused a lot of damage, the Judge may not grant possession and could even ask you to pay costs if they think the claim was too minor.
If the section 8 was thrown out you’d be back where you started, or worse if the tenants are now annoyed with you for taking them to court!!
If theyre paying rent etc and not causing problems otherwise, might be easier to issue a section 21 whenever you can and then claim any damages for repairs from the deposit?
Graham
Ground 13 is easy: damage to the property. It does what it says on the tin. If the tenant damages the property, e.g. the walls, floors, doors, roof “owing to waste neglect or default of the tenant”, then ground 13 exists.
Ground 12 is harder because it depends what terms are in the contract. And as @Graham_B says the breach (or for ground 12, the damage) has to be significant enough for an eviction, as opposed to, say a deduction from the tenancy deposit.
If your contract says “Tenant must keep windows clean”, then you’re never going to get an eviction is they never clean the windows. If you have more important terms like “Tenant not to keep pets without landlord’s written permission”, and they keep 5 dogs, 3 cats and a parrot, then you might have grounds…