A landlord couple have won their legal case against a tenant who claimed her section 21 notice was invalid because they had not sent important documents.

The tenant - Elena D’Aubigny – argued that the EPC, gas safety certificate and How to Rent guide had not been received and said the tenancy agreement did not contain a clause explicitly stating that these documents could be served by post.

The landlords - Dr Kameel Khan and Julia Randell-Khan - said they had served the documents by recorded delivery and that there was a clause in the agreement stating that such notices sent by post to the property would be deemed served on the tenant. D’Aubigny lost her case at tribunal, then lost her first appeal last year.

Intervenor

David Smith acted for intervenor, the NRLA, and explains that the Court of Appeal did not accept the landlords’ argument that any suggestion in a piece of legislation that a document had to be given or served meant it could be served by post, and posting would mean that service would be deemed to have occurred.

However, it did accept their secondary argument that the tenancy agreement had a clause within it which held that any notice sent by post would be deemed served. The tenant had argued that this only applied to formal legal notices and not other documents.

Relief

“This will be a relief to a fair few landlords and supporting organisations as this form of words is in pretty universal use across the sector and to have service of EPCs and the like defeated by reason of a somewhat odd reading of service provisions would have caused a lot of problems,” says Smith.

“At the same time these complex and unexpected arguments are precisely why the radical changed proposed by the Renters’ Rights Bill are a concern. We can advise on those points we can identify and anticipate but there will also be a whole lot of things that cannot be anticipated that may provoke appeals.”

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