Recover Your Property with Possession Claims Online

As a private landlord, your plate is always full of responsibilities. You have tenants and properties to manage, keep a track of rent invoices and bills, take care of the repairs and maintenance and more. You may run out of patience to deal with naughty tenants and seek legal help to carry out the evictions peacefully. If you find yourself in a similar situation, Shergroup can help you in evicting your tenants through the accelerated possession procedure and the standard possession procedure.

You can take court action to repossess a property if you’re owed money for rent or a mortgage, and the tenant or mortgage holder will not pay.

You can only use this service if:

• you’re over 18
• you own a property in England or Wales
• you’re owed money in rent or mortgage payments for a residential property

To be able to do this you have to start by giving either a Section 21 or Section 8 notice to your tenant.

Section 21 and Section 8 notices

You can evict tenants who have an assured shorthold tenancy using a Section 21 or Section 8 notice, or both.

Use a Section 8 notice if your tenants have broken the terms of the tenancy.

Before serving notice, try to resolve any disputes with your tenant instead. For example, work with your tenant to manage rent arrears or agree on a rent repayment plan if they have rent arrears.

Section 21 notice of seeking possession

You can use a Section 21 notice to evict your tenants either:

• after a fixed term tenancy ends – if there’s a written contract
• during a tenancy with no fixed end date – known as a ‘periodic’ tenancy

Section 8 notice of seeking possession

To give your tenants notice using a Section 8, you must fill in a ‘Notice seeking possession of a property let on an assured tenancy or an assured agricultural occupancy. Specify on the notice which terms of the tenancy they’ve broken.

You can apply to the court for a possession order if your tenants do not leave by the specified date.

You can get legal advice on how to fill in a Section 8 with the correct notice periods and how to give it to your tenants.

Once you have served your notices correctly you can wait for your tenant to pay your dues or leave you can then start with the eviction process.

There are two ways to get back your possession|

Standard Possession Orders

You can use the possession claim online service if you want to get your property back because your tenants owe you rent.

The service lets you fill in court forms online and see how the claim is progressing. It costs £355.

When you cannot use the online service

You will not be able to use the online service for some kinds of standard possession claim, for example where there’s been trespass on your property, or your tenants have broken the terms of the lease.

Fill in the paper standard possession claim form and post it to your local court that deals with housing possession.

It costs £355 to apply. Send a cheque made payable to ‘HM Courts and Tribunals Service’ to the court with your completed form.

If you made a possession claim before 3 August 2020

You’ll usually need to complete an N244 form to tell the court you want to continue with your claim.

You do not need to submit an N244 form if:

• you submitted a reactivation notice to the court before 4 pm on 30 April 2021
• a judge has issued a possession order that says your tenants must leave the property

How to submit an N244 form

You’ll need to either:

• post 3 copies of the form with your payment to the court
• email the form to the court and give your phone number – the court will call you so that you can pay over the phone

It will cost £275 if you want the court to give your tenants notice of your application or £108 if not – for example, if the case is urgent.

If the judge for your case decides that you need to give notice and you have not, you’ll need to pay the extra £167.

Accelerated Possession Orders

You can apply for an accelerated possession order if your tenants have not left by the date specified in your Section 21 notice and you’re not claiming rent arrears.

This is sometimes quicker than applying for a standard possession order and there’s usually no court hearing. It costs £355.

Fixed-term tenants cannot be evicted until their tenancy ends.

If you want to claim rent arrears you can use either the:

• standard possession procedure
• accelerated procedure to get your property back, then make a separate court claim for the rent arrears

How to apply

Download and fill in:

• the form for properties in England (available in English and Welsh)
• the form for properties in Wales (available in English and Welsh)

Send the completed form to the nearest court that deals with housing possession.

What happens next

Once your application is approved, the court will send your tenants a copy of the application.

Your tenants have 14 days to challenge the application, from the date they receive it.

A judge will decide either to:

• issue a possession order that states your tenants must leave the property (this is normally the case)
• have a court hearing (this usually only happens if the paperwork is not in order or your tenants raise an important issue)

Even if there’s a hearing, the court can still decide to issue a possession order.

If your tenants are in an exceptionally difficult situation the judge may give them up to 6 weeks.

If you made a possession claim before 3 August 2020

You’ll usually need to complete an N244 form to tell the court you want to continue with your claim.

You do not need to submit an N244 form if:

• you submitted a reactivation notice to the court before 4 pm on 30 April 2021
• a judge has issued a possession order that says your tenants must leave the property

How to submit an N244 form

You’ll need to either |

• post 3 copies of the form with your payment to the court
• email the form to the court and give your phone number – the court will call you so that you can pay over the phone

It will cost £275 if you want the court to give your tenants notice of your application or £108 if not – for example, if the case is urgent.

If the judge for your case decides that you need to give notice and you have not, you’ll need to pay the extra £167.

How Can Shergroup Help?

You can instruct us after you have filed your Section 8 Notice or Section 21 Notice, or we can walk you through the entire process from serving the appropriate Notice, attempting to agree on a Deed of Surrender to avoid the delay and cost of court proceedings, sending your Notice of Intent to file court proceedings, pre-court preparation, the court process, hearing preparation, court bundle, and on the Court awarding your Possession Order attendance of Enforcement Officers.

The process incorporates the most cost-effective proportionate Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service available to Litigants in Person (self-represented litigants where a Deed of Surrender to save time and costs for both the Landlord and the Tenant after service of a Statutory Notice but before the issue of proceedings, where it may be beneficial.

Where an agreement to repay arrears is achieved you and the tenant can communicate online and manage the repayment of arrears to get the tenant back on track.

Where agreement is not sought or unlikely to be reached, such as where the cause of the arrears or the possibility of repayment within a reasonable period, we can guide you through responding to a defence, preparing for a hearing, the court bundle, and instructing the attendance of either County Court Enforcement Officers to evict or we can secure your High Court Writ of Possession by transferring your Possession Order to the High Court for High Court Enforcement Officers.

Summing-up

If you need to move more quickly with your current possession order or with future possession orders, please contact our expert team who can advise you on timelines, costs, and any procedural points you need to complete before paying our fee.

We offer a complete end to end service to issue a Claim for Possession, obtain an Order, and enforce the same, including serving of Notices for a fixed fee. Our friendly business advisors will help you in taking a suitable approach in claiming your property back.

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