The Bank Holiday is a distant memory but the changes to notice periods are certainly not. 

We have summarised the changes below, but they are by no means simple. There could be further changes and there is no point second guessing, as anything is possible. 

Let us live in the moment and deal with what is happening now…

If a notice was issued and deemed served before Saturday 29 August it remains under the previous regime that existed up until that point i.e. notices in England deemed served on Friday 28 August 2020 would require three months’ notice while those served on or after Saturday 29 August would be six months’ notice. This now takes the requirement of section 21 notices having 6 months’ notice up until at least the 31 March 2021. 

The provision which meant that proceedings must be issued within 6 months from the service of the notice has now been amended to 10 months which is at least some good news for landlords. This means you have 10 months to issue court proceedings on the s21 notice from when it is served. 

The rules in Wales are slightly different and at present the requirement for section 21 is currently 6 months regardless. This, at present, is up to the 30 September 2020. However, it is likely that this will be amended further and extended in line with England. 

The Coronavirus Act 2020 made the notice period for any ground 3 months. This has changed and many grounds you can rely upon under section 8 will attract a 6-month notice period.

If you have sufficient evidence to make out a claim for possession under ground 14 (in conjunction to other grounds where notice is required i.e. ground 1 which currently has a 6 month notice period) it seems there is no requirement to provide notice. Ground 14 is relevant when the tenant or an occupier has caused nuisance or annoyance to their neighbours, the landlord or the landlord’s agent. It is important to stress that you must have sufficient evidence to support ground 14 claim. It cannot be used where there is insufficient evidence to leapfrog yourself to the front of the queue to avoid the notice periods. 

The rules for rent arrears have been slightly amended. The notice period is just four weeks under grounds 8, 10 and 11 if the rent arrears exceed 6 months at the date of service of the notice. If there are less than six months’ rent arrears at the time of service, the notice period will be 6 months.

The current stay on eviction proceedings i.e. up to the 20 September 2020 remains unchanged by this latest announcement. It will be a case of 'watch this space' if the ban is extended further.

We know the changes are presenting testing times.

To try and simplify this further we have put together a table to summarises the key points: