RTB told landlords posting date = service date. The High Court says it doesn't. Accommodation providers set up to fail?

If you take your logic to its ultimate conclusion, it would be impossible for anybody to comply with the legislation.

Again, I would emphasise that the Court did not invalidate the notice because of the confusion in the tribunal’s report over the date of uploading/posting/service.
 
Sorry for a stupid question but does ‘Served’ mean actually received? (As in movies when a summons server hands over a legal document to a person saying “you’ve been served”)

I thought it meant sending the documents to the tenant and the RTB at the same time, but obviously not if it’s the delivery date as that could be different.


There’s some information on the courts website about serving legal notices. If landlords need to follow the same procedures as legal professionals instead of relying on the RTB guidance, they’d need to engage a solicitor for everything (probably a good idea though).
 
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My reading of the entire document indicates that the bigger issue is the fact that the new owner and / or their agent was not correctly and fully identified, either to the tenant or on the notice of termination.

Also that the RTB incorrectly stated that the NOT was served on 20th Jan, when it hadn't been posted till 21st Jan.

Both the property owner & the RTB made a bags of it.
 
Sarenco said:
If you take your logic to its ultimate conclusion, it would be impossible for anybody to comply with the legislation.
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This is not true. If I hand deliver or email both same day, it would work. If I post to tenant and update to RTB multiple days in a row I would also surely be compliant (as one of those days must coincide with the date the letter was received).

I'm simply asking for you to offer support to your statement that there is no issue here.


DannyBoyD said:
My reading of the entire document indicates that the bigger issue is the fact that the new owner and / or their agent was not correctly and fully identified, either to the tenant or on the notice of termination.

Also that the RTB incorrectly stated that the NOT was served on 20th Jan, when it hadn't been posted till 21st Jan.

Both the property owner & the RTB made a bags of it
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Yes, agreed the entity issue was the issue on which the high court invalidated this particular case. I'm picking up on the judges observations in relation to when a posted notice is actually deemed served which I think has much wider implications.
 
stormy said:
Yes, agreed the entity issue was the issue on which the high court invalidated this particular case. I'm picking up on the judges observations in relation to when a posted notice is actually deemed served which I think has much wider implications.
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I would agree with you.

I think even if the NoT has been drafted perfecting with no errors at all, the serving issue would still have invalidated.

This has huge implications going forward as all rent notices must now be 'served' on the same day.

Email makes this easier, but is this the date the email is sent or when it is opened by the RTB and/or the tenant. If the tenant doesn't open the email for a week, when is the notice served?

A mess caused by the nonsensel same day service requirement.
 
stormy said:
If I hand deliver or email both same day, it would work.
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Another question sorry, same as previous, but does served mean delivered to, or received by, the addressee?

For important notices and/or documents like a NoT or a Rent Review. Does delivered and received mean the same thing? So if a notice was personally delivered to the dwelling for the tenant, and to the RTB offices on the same day, and a landlord or courier had photo proof of that, is that sufficient. What if the tenant was on holiday or in hospital.
 
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@Sarenco
Sarenco said:
If you take your logic to its ultimate conclusion, it would be impossible for anybody to comply with the legislation.
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That wouldn't appear to be true.
If a landlord serves notice on the tenant personally today he establishes that the tenant was served today. If he also emails the RTB today he establishes he served the RTB today (by virtue of emails being deemed to be served on the same day they were sent). He has therefore complited with the requirements of the RTA and the notice is not invalid.

@bipped
There's deemed service for notices posted - generally the next working day as Sarenco pointed out. However the judge has said something which means this can no longer be relied upon - as pointed out by

@stormy
stormy said:
What significance then does this statement from the judge carry:
"...alternatively on the date of actual receipt, if the evidence establishes that this is a different date than the deemed date"
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We all know that a very common tactic of advisors to tenants seeking advice about notices to terminate or of rent increases for example, is to dispute that the notice is valid. This statement from the judge allows a tenant to have received a notice 2 working days after it was posted (rather than 1) and for the date of actual receipt to be the date it was served on the tenant - thus invalidating the notice.

@bipped
Here is in instructive link
gatehouselaw.co.uk

To post, or not to post? That is the question (sort of…)

Explore the case Khan v D'Aubigny and its implications on deemed service. To post, or not to post? That is the question.
gatehouselaw.co.uk gatehouselaw.co.uk
 
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DannyBoyD said:
Also that the RTB incorrectly stated that the NOT was served on 20th Jan, when it hadn't been posted till 21st Jan.
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No surprises that once again the RTB determination order is incorrect and that it’s the landlord who loses, no rent and High Court fees as well.
 
Sarenco said:
If you are really concerned about this, why not send the notice to the tenant and the RTB by the same method (eg certified post) on the same day?

I don’t think it actually matters but I doubt I will convince you otherwise.
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I think ppl are getting confused because nothing to do with the RTB is straighforward, everything is designed to confuse and hopefully cause landlords to slip up... therefore I think you can appreciate why they are trying to be so literal about the wording as this could be used to invalidate an otherwise valid NoT..
 
bipped said:
So if a notice was personally delivered to the dwelling for the tenan
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My sibling personally served my notices, each tenant was asked to sign the notice when handed over, which they did, and a photo was taken of the signed notice. So there could be no dispute about post/receipt. Then I took RTB cases against myself on “Validity of Notice”. Between sibling and myself it was 5 or 6 cases. Some were valid and some not in the Determination orders. All the notices were exactly the same.
 
DannyBoyD said:
Also that the RTB incorrectly stated that the NOT was served on 20th Jan, when it hadn't been posted till 21st Jan.
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So this is the problem, the NoT was served to the RTB on the 20th, but only posted to the tenant on the 21st, so he would have only received it on the 22nd!

Can someone please explain why it is so important that they are served on the same day, what difference does a day or 2 make, especially since tenants have so much eviction notice these days? I understand ppl can abuse this, should common sense not come into play, if it is reasonable then it is reasonable?
 
Bronte said:
My sibling personally served my notices, each tenant was asked to sign the notice when handed over, which they did, and a photo was taken of the signed notice. So there could be no dispute about post/receipt. Then I took RTB cases against myself on “Validity of Notice”. Between sibling and myself it was 5 or 6 cases. Some were valid and some not in the Determination orders. All the notices were exactly the same.
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lol you couldnt make this stuff up...
 
polecon said:
If a landlord serves notice on the tenant personally today he establishes that the tenant was served today. If he also emails the RTB today he establishes he served the RTB today (by virtue of emails being deemed to be served on the same day they were sent). He has therefore complited with the requirements of the RTA and the notice is not invalid.
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But what happens if their was an issue with the RTB's mailbox, mail server, DNS.. whatever and the email was not actually delivered til the next day?
 
Bronte said:
My sibling personally served my notices, each tenant was asked to sign the notice when handed over, which they did, and a photo was taken of the signed notice. So there could be no dispute about post/receipt. Then I took RTB cases against myself on “Validity of Notice”. Between sibling and myself it was 5 or 6 cases. Some were valid and some not in the Determination orders. All the notices were exactly the same.
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Did they give reasons for those determinations?
 
@Bronte

Your tenants were under no obligation to sign a confirmation that they had received the notices. What if they refused and simply threw the envelope in the bin?

@polecon, @stormy

How do you prove that you personally served the notices on the tenant?

How do you know the email address is correct (unless specifically provided for in a tenancy agreement) or that the tenant has a device for receiving emails?

If you send multiple notices on multiple days, which version of the notice governs the notification period?

The big advantage of sending notices by certified post is that you can subsequently prove that the notices were sent to the correct addresses on a particular date.

The UK case posted above (to the extent that it’s relevant at all) actually supports my case that the Courts do not place an onerous burden of proof on landlords to prove receipt/service of notices.

Again, the High Court did NOT invalidate the notice in the case cited in the OP on the basis of a difference between the date of deemed service and actual receipt.
 
Colin4444 said:
Can someone please explain why it is so important that they are served on the same day, what difference does a day or 2 make, especially since tenants have so much eviction notice these days? I understand ppl can abuse this, should common sense not come into play, if it is reasonable then it is reasonable?
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The reasons are

1. Make life difficult for landlords
2. Give tenants every possible opportunity to challenge the notice

There are no other reasons, there is no logical reason why these must be served on the same day
 
The 'postal rule' used to be a fairly constant given in almost every area of contract. I just think it's wild that receipt date is now the norm.
 
Colin4444 said:
lol you couldnt make this stuff up...
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The first case confused the person holding the case for the RTB, she got mad at me half way thru and told me from now on instead of calling her Mary I had to address her as Ms Adjucator so I asked her to call me Ms Brontë instead of my first name. I knew I’d lost but it was a great learning curve for the next cases. She had not prepared at all, had not read the documentation and blamed technology for her being late to the Teams meeting. Might have been Skype I don’t remember. Another case the RTB scanned the documentation so badly I had to help the adjudicator by emailing it to them in the online meeting. By the time we got to my siblings first case we were getting very au fait when the whole operation.
 
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