Hi,
We have tenants (couple) living in a 3 storey cottage and the older of the two (in their 80’s) had a fall and broke their hip and also have dementia.
Occupational health have said they need a groud floor 2 bed flat and have told the council this.
Where do we stand with trying to help them out? As we issued a S21 in October of last year as they asked us to issue one (council said if we issued a S21 the council will house them) to date this hasnt happened.
The couple are lovely and we do not want to do wrong by them, but I am so worried that the older tenant will have another fall etc.
Thank you for any advice.
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@Tanya9
Well done for caring about them.
You can’t magically make your property suitable but could consider any possible adjustments (can one of rooms on ground floor be converted to bedroom? Stairlift? Ask occupational health at the council (?) what can be done meanwhile - they are the experts
however I’d ask council what has happened re a ground floor flat for them? Perhaps you need to apply for possession and they need to be at imminent risk of being homeless before council will act, unfortunately.
Good luck
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The Council will only help at the last possible moment, which means they will expect you to follow through with a court possession claim and then a warrant. Depending on when you served it in October, it may have expired as their shelf life is only 6 months. You only now have 3 days to serve another one before 4:30pm on 30 April. After that s21 is banned. If you do this, make sure you get everything right and add a couple of days to the 2 months notice if you post it. You only have until 31 July to start a possession claim.
Make sure you also give each tenant a copy of the RRA information sheet before 31 May.
Edit: On reflection, dont post the s21, hand deliver it and get a receipt
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I don’t think you have to do this if you have served a Section 21 notice. I understood that in that case the agreement would remain an AST. Not sure when to though, or how this works if S21 is not enforced.
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Openrent will be emailing it to tenants on 1 may anyway cc LLs
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This is a very interesting point and possibly an anomaly. Despite the fact that the tenancy remains an AST until the s21 process is concluded, I dont think there’s an exemption from the requirement to serve the RRA information sheet. I’ll look into this though.
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Having looked at the relevant paragraphs in both the Renters Rights Act 2025 and The Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Statement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026, I can’t see any exemption from serving the information sheet, but its possible that a lawyer could argue that it shouldn’t apply. To avoid having to hire one, one possibility might be to serve the info sheet, but explain to the tenant that the tenancy remains an AST for the time being by virtue of the s21 notice. Not ideal really. I will update this thread if I find anything further.
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Thank you for your advice, we think we have come up with a plan and moving our tenants to one of our other properties as to be honest the tenants are lovely and at their ages (60’s and 80’s) we want to make sure they are ok. Just need to work the logistics etc out xx
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Just for information, I checked the position on whether the information sheet must be served if a valid s21 has already been served. They confirmed Karl11’s assumption that it would not need to be served until up to 1 month after the tenancy ceases to be an AST. My apologies for taking us down a blind alley.
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No apology needed David. It’s a minefield out there, and we all are simply picking up bits and bobs as we go along.
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