What is a section 8 notice?
Section 8 notice is the first step of tenant eviction process which is used by troubled landlords. Under section 8 notices landlords with issues are using tenant misconducts and tenancy contract violations to evict tenants from their properties. Generally main reasons noted in section 8 notices are having pending arrears for property rent, damaging properties of the landlord and disturbing the neighbors constantly. Once the notice is given tenants are left with 14 days to vacate their properties generally. However issuing notice should include few information’s correctly for them to be effective. Those are tenants name, address of the property, ‘grounds for possession’ which describes why tenants required to leave the property, and end date for the notice. If any of these facts are wrong it may create an opportunity for tenant to resist vacating the property. Section 8 notices must clearly mention reasons for eviction notices. In practice there exist 17 reasons.
1-8 – Rental arrears
- If the tenant is paying rental monthly two-month arrears is adequate to provide a notice
- If the tenant supposed to pay rent weekly 8 weeks of arrears is enough to provide a notice
- If tenant pays annually or quarterly arrears of three months is enough to demand an eviction.
When houseowner/ property owner requires the house before tenant period ends same section 8 notices have been used. However after all these efforts tenants are capable of challenging the eviction based on landlord mistakes done while processing the notice. However, tenants are unable to ignore the notices without challenging them. In a scenario where tenants are not vacating the properties they will be identified as ‘intentionally homeless’ people whom will be receiving no support from the authorities.