Letting agents and landlords are being encouraged to consider serving a second Section 8 notice if rental arrears accrue to more than six months of missed payments, even if their original Section 8 has yet to come into force.

This due to an important change at the six months of arrears mark, when the notice period for tenants drops from six months to just four weeks.

Robert Bolwell, senior partner at Dutton Gregory, which manages the ARLA Propertymark Legal Helpline, commented: “One of the tantalising questions now is, what do I do if I have rent arrears of five months? Do I serve a notice now for six months’ expiration date or do I wait until I go over the six month mark? At six months, the rules say your Section 8 notice period (on ground eight) can actually be four weeks.”

Bolwell added: “We’re looking at situations now where the clients have served a six-month notice initially, when the rent arrears are quite small, but when we get to that six months [of arrears] mark, we might be serving another notice because…of the shorter period [of four weeks’ notice]. The general rule is, it’s never wrong to serve additional notices.”

He said those with rent arrears of three or four months could be served notice.

He advised landlords and agents: “Keep an eye on those rent arrears and, if things are getting worse, when you hit that six-month mark, serve another one for four weeks. Because that might enable you to start proceedings more quickly than waiting for your first notice to expire.”

In terms of the court backlog, Bolwell believes that many landlords will save time by going down the “accelerated route” than the “normal route”.

Bolwell noted that, in addition to the estimated backlog of 65,000 cases, an additional review process, combined with the requirement to social distance in the courts themselves, means that it will take longer than usual for cases to be heard, with courts potentially hearing as little as three cases an hour in the short-term, down from the normal up to 10.

The legal expert also noted that the government has changed the forms for Section 21 and Section 8 notices and advised letting agents and landlords to ensure they were using the most recent forms.

“They [the forms] look very similar to pre-Covid except that there are different expiry periods for different grounds, and it sets these out,” he added.