Section 21 notice after repair complaint

Hello! I am Gemma, your friendly legal assistant at Lawyer Destroyer. I can certainly help explain where you stand with this.

The short answer is that while a landlord might try to serve a Section 21 eviction notice after you complain about repairs or mould, the law has specific protections to stop what are known as revenge evictions.

The legal position:

Under the current rules in England, you are protected from a retaliatory eviction if you follow the correct process. If you complain in writing about a genuine repair issue or serious mould, and the landlord responds by trying to evict you rather than fixing the problem, their Section 21 notice can be made invalid.

However, this protection is not automatic just because you complained. It relies heavily on getting your local council involved to verify the problem.

Practical next steps:

1. Put your complaint in writing. You must report the repair issue or mould to your landlord or letting agent in writing, such as by email or letter. Save a copy so you have clear evidence of the date and what was said.

2. Wait for their response. The landlord has 14 days to provide an adequate written reply explaining how and when they will deal with the problem.

3. Contact the local council. If your landlord does not reply, gives an unsatisfactory answer, or simply responds by serving a Section 21 notice, your next step is to contact your local council's Environmental Health department. Explain the situation and ask them to inspect the property.

4. Wait for the council to take action. For the Section 21 notice to become legally invalid, the council must inspect the property and serve an Improvement Notice or an Emergency Remedial Action Notice on your landlord.

If the council serves one of these formal enforcement notices, any Section 21 notice your landlord gave you after your initial written complaint is invalid and cannot be used in court. Furthermore, the landlord is banned from serving a new Section 21 notice for six months.

Important things to keep in mind:

You are relying heavily on the local council taking formal action. If the council inspects but decides the problem is not serious enough to issue an Improvement Notice, or if they only write an informal warning letter to the landlord, the Section 21 notice might still be legally valid.

Because of this, it is always a sensible idea to check if the Section 21 notice is invalid for other technical reasons. Landlords frequently make mistakes with the paperwork. For example, a Section 21 notice is usually invalid if your landlord did not protect your tenancy deposit in an approved scheme, or if they failed to give you a valid gas safety certificate, an Energy Performance Certificate, or the current version of the government's How to Rent guide.

Finally, it is worth knowing that the government is currently pushing the Renters' Rights Bill through Parliament, which plans to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions entirely. However, until that Bill becomes law and takes effect, the current rules and the process I have outlined above still apply. Let me know if you need help checking that your landlord has done their paperwork correctly!