You have decided that you are absolutely fed up with your lodger and you are going to serve a notice to quit on them (as discussed in day 19 of our 21 days of tips). You have written it all out. How do you go about serving it?
As you share a house with the lodger, you don’t want to put it in the post (and posting notices isn’t advisable anyway as it is impossible normally to prove that it has been delivered). There are a number of possibilities:
- handing it to them
- leaving it on their bed
- leaving it on the table in their room
- sticking it on their door
Personal service is generally best. Also you can arrange for someone else to be present with you, so that if your lodger is minded to lie and say that they have never had it, you will be able to prove otherwise. Indeed, the very fact that you had someone there will often mean that the lodger will know that this is not something he can do.
However happily not all lodgers are liars. In many cases you will prefer not to risk a confrontation, and will just leave it in his room. You can still have someone with you when you leave the notice on the bed (or where ever) to be a witness just in case.
Finally, make sure you keep a copy of the notice or less, and keep a careful note of the date and time that you served and how you served it. You can get your witness to sign and date this also. Hopefully your lodger will leave as requested, but it is as well to keep careful record just in case.
Have you ever had to serve notice on any of your lodgers? How did you do it? Were there any problems?
If you are a landlord or a tenant, you will help and guidance on Tessa's other sites, Landlord Law and the Landlord Law Blog.
Hi,
I’ve just been scanning your website over the past day or so as I have had problems with my lodger recently – she won’t ‘square up’ the electricity bill before she goes so I deem her in breach of the lodger agreement.
I gave her 9 weeks notice some time ago and we are now down to the last couple of weeks. 9 weeks was up to the end of June and I thought it would give her plenty of time to find something else.
Anyway, after reading the above post I realised that I did not give written notice. I don’t THINK my lodging agreement states that it would be written but I did it verbally and then we had a few text messages back and forth discussing the date she would move out.
I am expecting her to move out at the end of the month but failing that, and if she disputes it, I would hope that records of the text messages from the phone company might cover me. Hope it doesnt come to that though!!
Regards,
RatherStressedLiveInLandlord
Matt, I think it would be a good idea to give her a letter just confirming the arrangement so you have something.
It could say something along the lines of that you gave her notice on [date] and it was then agreed that she would move out on [date] and that you are just writing to confirm the arrangement and put her on notice that you will require the room back on that day and will not be willing to give her any further time. Something like that.