Calculating rent arrears when dealing with partial payments

First of all, if the rent is payable monthly, the requirement for s.8 is that 2 months' rent be _unpaid_.
This should clarify the situation, but just to illustrate:
- 1st Jan. rent due and unpaid: On 2nd Jan. 1 month rent is unpaid.
- 1st Feb. rent due and unpaid: On 2nd Feb. 2 months' rent is unpaid.

So if tenant stops paying altogether it only takes 1 month and 1 day to reach the threshold, as you mentioned.

As stated by Romain above, if the rent is £800 per month as soon as they are in arrears by £1600 they meet the criteria for S8 eviction. This also applies for obtaining housing benefit direct to the landlord although many councils will resist either becasue they do not know their own rules or just because that's how they are! If you dig in and quote their own rules at them they soon give in.

As Romain says above as soon as he misses two rent payments he is two months in arrears and this triggers Section 8. The notice is valid at point of service. Then if he pays some remember he must be two months in arrears on the day of the Court hearing or Judge will not order possession. As a belt and braces serve both a Section 21 and a Section 8 ( if two months in arrears) so if you don't get them one way you get them another. Section 21 is valid provided the AST fixed term has expired, or is about to expire in two months and all the deposit protection paperwork is in order. If in doubt about the forms and the paperwork speak to Paul Shampalina at Landlord Action, who for a fixed fee ( and less than the High St solicitors) will sort it for you.

And I am not on commission!

My understanding is that the tenant needs to be two months in arrears on two dates, firstly the date you serve the section 8 ground 8 notice, and secondly on the date of the hearing.

So, back to my original question, if the tenant pays half rent ( £400 ) on the 1st of Feb, then at what point can a section 8 G8 be served? the middle of February? (since he only paid half a month) or 1st of March (when the next full months rent is due?)

Thanks

As said, you can serve notice using ground 8 as soon as 2 months' rent is unpaid.
The amount of rent unpaid can only increase after a rent due date, when a new month of rent becomes due.
So in your example the earliest date would be 2nd of March (If rent due date is 1st of March you need to wait until that day has ended).

Reply to the comment left by "Romain " at "28/01/2014 - 16:43":

Thanks Romain - that was kinda the answer I was expecting, nice to have it confirmed.

Regards

This is referred to as a day 32 situation (or if you like once a year day 29 or 31 4 times!) as it means the day after the rent due date. So all answers above are correct.

However the actual Law dating back to the Middle Ages is a debtor is allowed until sunset to settle a debt. So depending on the time of year this could be around 3,30 pm or 10pm actually on day 32 etc as above - the day the debt fell payable.

However as we can no longer take indebted serfs before the Lord of the Manor while he enjoys his evening venison after sunset it is basically day 32

Oops seriously meant to add something important that ties in with the correct point above 2 months when you serve and 2 months the day you stand in front of the Judge.

You are allowed to count the whole of month 2 because the process takes so long that you know by the end of that month whether you can proceed to Court or not. And most cases the tenant is 4 or 5 months adrift on that hearing date.

BUT................

If you get a cute tenant who hovers in anout out of two months beware on the day of the hearing you can only take that number of days on a daily basis in the updated arrears schedule put in front of the Judge on that exact day.

Reply to the comment left by "Industry Observer " at "28/01/2014 - 18:02":

I may be misunderstanding, but if you suggest that the whole month can be counted as unpaid when the tenant pays only half the rent, that's clearly not so.

Romain

No of course not give me some credit.

No I was just talking generally and about how soon month 2 can be added to month 1 or whatever is left of month 1