Reasons to Evict a Tenant – Advice for Landlords

Evictions can be a minefield for landlords to navigate and getting it wrong can incur large legal costs. Here’s a quick guide to the reasons you can evict a tenant, and how you can go about it.

How do I evict my tenant?

Most private landlords will need to issue a section 21 or section 8 notice as a first step towards ending the most common kind of tenancy, an assured shorthold tenancy. This covers both ‘periodic’ tenancies, which run week-to-week or month-to-month, and fixed term tenancies, which run for a set period of time.

Section 21 notices are notifications that tenancies will not be renewed, so after a fixed-term tenancy ends, or during periodic tenancies with no set end date. These cannot be issued if the tenancy is less than four months old, the deposit is not in a deposit protection scheme or various other reasons which are covered on the government’s website. This notice must give at least two months’ notice of when the tenant will need to have left the property.

Section 8 notices are issued when a tenant has broken the terms of the tenancy. You can give between two weeks and two months’ notice and can apply for a possession order through the courts if the tenants do not leave.

Can I evict my tenant?

These notices can only be issued under certain circumstances.

Here’s a list of the most common actionable reasons to evict a tenant under section 8:

• The tenant is not paying the rent
• The tenant is engaging in antisocial behaviour (e.g. using drugs)
• The tenant is causing unreasonable damage to the property

And under section 21:

• The landlord would like to move into the property themselves
• The landlord would like to sell the property without a tenant in situ

It’s advisable to seek the opinion of tenant eviction solicitors, such as DFA Law, who can advise on the correct manner to go about evictions, including producing eviction notices for tenants. Get in touch with our dispute resolution and litigation team or give us a call on 01604 60 95 60.