Introduction

Although we have a detailed evictions guide on Landlord Law, not all landlords will want to act in person when evicting tenants.  Bringing a court claim on your own is a time-consuming business and can be very stressful and many landlords will prefer to hand this work over to solicitors to act for them.

Also, it is very easy to make a mistake – which could set your claim back many months as it can be difficult to correct even the most simple errors unless you are experienced in this work.  This was a particular problem over the coronavirus pandemic period with the government issuing constant rule changes.

If you are looking to use section 21, note that this will only be available for a limited period of time.  If you make a mistake, this may not be discovered until the Renters Rights Bill has come into force and it is too late to start again.

Bear in mind also that once the Renters Rights Bill is in force, making a mistake will not only cost you your case – you will also be at risk of the Local Authority serving a Civil Penalty Notice of up to £7,000 and your tenants applying for a Rent Repayment Order.  If you are unfamiliar with bringing evictions through the courts, it may be safer to use solicitors.

You need to be careful about choosing solicitors to act for you though.  Landlord and tenant work is a bit of a ‘niche area’ and, for example, the solicitor who dealt with your convening or your divorce will not be suitable.

You also need to be very careful about using one of many of the ‘eviction specialists’ advertised on the internet. Frequently these are not actually solicitors firms.  Although they are cheaper than ‘proper’ solicitors, their staff may not have been properly trained and they may not carry insurance to compensate you if things go wrong. Find out more about this in the blog post here.

Using solicitors and solicitors’ costs

All solicitors have to carry comprehensive professional indemnity insurance as a condition of being allowed to practice as solicitors.

There are also rules which all solicitors have to follow to protect you.

Find out more about this in the short guide here on finding and using solicitors.

Note in particular that you need to be careful about costs and don’t give your solicitors ‘carte blanche’ to go off and do what they think fit!  Or you may find yourself presented with an unexpectedly high bill.

Either agree to fixed costs or set a limit over which the solicitors cannot go without getting further authorisation from you.  See the short guide for more on this.