A Section 21 notice is generally used to evict a tenant on grounds other than rent arrears. For tenants in rent arrears a Section 8 notice is normally used.

A Section 21 notice seeking possession is a mandatory eviction. This means a judge must award you possession, as long as you have completed and served the Section 21 correctly on the tenant. Unfortunately this is where 75% of landlords go wrong and their case is thrown from court on a technicality. Don't be one of these landlords, use the Visum Section 21 notice generator to get it right each and every time.

Due to the Section 21 notice being mandatory many landlords use this notice for rent arrears as well, but if you do this then you will not get a CCJ against the tenant or a money award. It also takes much longer to expire than a Section 8 (2 rent months versus 2 straight weeks for the Section 8), so if the tenant isn't paying whilst you are waiting for the notice to expire then you could end up seriously out of pocket.

The Visum Section 21 notice generator will create your notice for you in the correct prescribed format and you simply print and post.

You may also consider creating your Section 21 notice and serve during the move in process and getting the tenant to sign a form to acknowledge receipt (there is a suitable form in our free tenancy pack). This has one major benefit in that the tenant cannot deny having received it. It also stays in effect indefinitely (until it is rescinded by letter or a new tenancy is issued) but does NOT have to be actioned. This means that at the end of the written tenancy term you can start court proceedings immediately if things are not going well. If you intend to serve a Section 21 at the start of a tenancy you must post-date it by at least 14 days to give you time to protect the tenant's deposit, as a Section 21 cannot be issued before a deposit is protected.