Here is a question to the blog clinic from Doris (not her real name) who is a landlord

We issued a section 21 but they say it is invalid as we did not give them a ‘How to Rent’ Guide at the beginning of their contract. What can we do next?

Answer

The people you spoke to are correct.  Service of the How to Rent Guide is a pre-requisite for serving a valid section 21 notice.

However, you can serve the Guide out of time so I suggest you serve a copy on them now – see my post here on this.  Then, not less than one day later, serve a new section 21 notice. You will I am afraid have to give another two months notice.

However, before doing this, you had better make sure that you have complied with all the other section 21 requirements eg

• Protection of tenancy deposit
• Service of deposit prescribed information
• Service of  the gas safety certificate on tenants before they moved in

There is a summary here.

Make sure you use the new Form 6a and not any of the old notices that you may find scattered around the internet.