Gas safety certificates,​

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For reasons of safety there is a requirement for your gas appliances and boiler to be checked annually.

 

For the purposes of serving a section 21 the requirement is first that on moving in there is a gas safety certificate.

 

And you can't serve a section 21 without having a current gas safety certificate. The ones in between are not required for the purposes of serving a section 21 notice. There was a certain Judge in Croydon who always had a hearing if the in between gas safety certificates were not in the bundle, the case was given to a different Judge for the hearing and every time we got the order and the Judge in question eventually gave up doing it.

 

Even if you have already served this and the required items below we still serve these prior to serving a section 21 to have no doubt as the tenant will take every opportunity to argue in most cases.

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The tenancy Deposit.

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If there was a deposit was it protected within 30 days and deposit prescribed information given?

Click the button the the right for more on that.

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Energy performance certificate.

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To comply the tenant must also be given a copy of the EPC and the how to rent guide. 

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The bottom line is that for the tenant thinking of renting a property, the EPC is a good selling point.  It just seems a bit mad that it is a requirement if you want to evict him. Unless the purpose of this rule is one that creates just another reason to fail an eviction process rather than for any other practical or actually worthwhile reason. We serve this along with the EPC before serving the notice.

 

How to Rent Guide.

 

This guide is a great document of great importance and shows that the government has grasped the nettle in the shifting of the Housing sector to the Private sector although it took over thirty years to come up with it. 

 

Yet the rules surrounding the serving of it are enough to make your lose your hair. You can easily make the mistake of not serving the most recent how to rent guide before serving a notice. The new 20 page court paper N5b is designed to reflect all of the rules, giving the courts a bullet proof form of guaranteed failure if the author of the N5b doesn't fully understand the implications of all the questions. We are here to help.

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We always serve the latest how to rent guide and the EPC and the latest and first Gas safety certificate before we served the section 21 notice and we have proof of service and a court doc N215 proof of service doc with the claim for good measure. 

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The bigger picture is given on the page about the Deregulation Act here.