Court Of Appeal Rule In Favour Of Landlord & Letting Agent In Eviction & Deposits Case

In the landmark Court of Appeal eviction case of Northwood Solihull v Fearn & Ors, the Appeal Judge has ruled in favour of the Landlord and Letting Agent after more than two years of legal proceedings.

The case focused on a Section 8 eviction notice which was served on a couple (Mr Fearn and Ms Cooke) by their Landlord and Letting Agent (Northwood Solihull) after they stopped paying their rent. The Tenants challenged the notice based on the fact that under section 44 of the Companies Act 2006 the Section 8 notice had:

• Not been signed by two authorised signatories or a company director in the presence of a witness; and
• That the section 44 requirements also applied to the confirmatory certificate for their original deposit.

The decision of the Court of Appeal will come as welcome relief to landlords and letting agents across the UK.

Northwood Solihull v Fearn & Ors

Background

In 2019, letting and estate agency, Northwood Solihull, attempted to evict Mr Fearn and Ms Cooke, who had stopped paying their rent and served them with a Section 8 eviction notice. Based on the aforementioned arguments, the Tenants took their case first to the County Court and then to the High Court and Supreme Court.

On 21 December 2019, High Court Judges decided that the above law did not apply to eviction notices, but they did uphold the Tenant’s claim that it applied to a confirmatory certificate for their deposit amount.

However, last week, the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Northwood Solihull on both elements. The Court of Appeal ruled that the Section 8 notice (and, by way of extension, a Section 21 notice) or a tenancy deposit certificate could be signed by any authorised employee of a landlord and/or letting agency. Both documents could also be signed in line with section 44 of the Companies Act. The Court of Appeal added that non-compliance wouldn’t invalidate the documents.

Comment

Had the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Tenants in this case, it could have had far-reaching implications for landlords and letting agents, as it would mean that every eviction notice and certificate would have to be signed by two authorised signatories or a company director in the presence of a witness. This could pose logistical issues for letting agents and landlords who operate across multiple office locations and have to authenticate thousands of documents each month.