The Tenant Eviction Process

Landlords who have tenants within their property must follow a strict legal process if they wish to evict the tenants. When a tenancy agreement is put in place it becomes a legal binding contract and there are obligations on both parties. A landlord may come to the decision that they wish to evict a tenant; this can happen for a number of reasons. There are many valid reasons for evicting a tenant, these include due to a tenant not paying rent or due the property not being cared for. Regardless of the reason for the eviction the legal process must be followed. The first step in the eviction process is for the landlord to serve a ‘notice to quit’ to the tenants. This provides the tenants the opportunity to leave the property before any kind of legal process begins.

At this point the landlord does not have any legal rights to evict the tenant but this is the first step towards securing this opportunity. If the tenant does not leave the property after the notice to quit being served the next step in the process is for the landlord to serve another notice. The landlord must send the tenant a ‘notice of intention to seek possession’. This document states to the tenant that the landlord is now pursuing the matter further and will be applying to the courts to get the right to evict the tenant. During this time a tenant may choose to leave the property but legally they still cannot be evicted until a court order has been granted. The landlord must apply to the court for a possession order, this will provide the landlord with the legal rights to evict the tenant and take back possession of the property.

In order for the courts to grant this there will be a requirement to state why the tenant should be evicted and evidence may be asked for. The next step is that the courts will grant the landlord with a possession order. Although in order to evict a tenant the landlord must apply for a warrant fro eviction; this will allow bailiffs to be used in order to evict the tenants from the property. Quite often the eviction process can be quite time consuming and in many cases it does seem that a tenant has more rights than the landlord. It is important that the legal process is followed by landlords at all times.