Originally published at: https://blog.openrent.co.uk/whatsapp-email-or-letters-whats-best-for-landlord-tenant-communication/
Regular readers of the Landlord Hub will have noticed one piece of advice coming up again and again: speak to your tenants and see if you can come to an agreement. It’s a basic first step that can be easily overlooked. But how should landlords communicate with their tenants in the 21st century? There are…
Landlords should be aware that there is no general provision for serving legal notices or prescribed documents electronically. A tenant would have to give prior written consent, (with a wet signature) to be served these things by email, (including s21/s8 notices, EPC, Gas Safety, How to Rent, EiCR etc). As far as I am aware there is no provision for serving these documents by whatsapp or similar. With legally required documents, the issue is about whether they have been served, not whether the tenant has a copy. For some documents, such as a deed of guarantee, deed of assignment or deed of surrender, hard copy with a wet signature is still required. I would also always have hard copies of the tenancy agreement, deposit PI and inventory as many courts still baulk at the idea of electronic signatures.
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