Before you serve a Section 21 notice, you must ensure you serve:-

– Energy Performance Certificate – check the register  for a copy.

– Right to Remain on all prospective occupants of the property

– gas inspection report – CP12

– ‘How to Rent’ booklet.  Note – be careful not issue the ‘How to Rent a Safe Home ‘by mistake.

Ensure you serve the correct ‘How to Rent’ booklet according to when the tenancy commenced.  You can find past copies here:-

  –  October 1st 2015

  – January 16th 2016

  – January 17th 2018

  – June 26th 2018 (be careful if you have an original copy from June 2018 as it was incorrect, and was re-issued July 6th 2018.

  – May 31st 2019  substantially updated to reflect the changes introduced by the Tenant Fees Act.Since that date there has been 2 further minor changes.  Note that the date inside the front cover remained as May 2019

  – June 3rd 2019  (Corrected to reflect the rebranding of National Approved Letting Scheme (NALS) to Safeagent, and to update links to the GOV.UK client money protection scheme webpage.)

– July 29th 2019 (The ‘Before you start’ section was updated to clarify Shelter’s advisory role. The sentence ‘If you don’t have a guarantor, you can ask Shelter for help’ was amended to ‘If you don’t have a guarantor, you can ask Shelter for advice’.)

  – December 10th 2020 (electrical safety regulations added)

July 21st 2020.  Guide remains the same as December 2020, but an Easy to Read Guide added.  We understand that the requirement to issue the main guide remains

It is not clear whether the How to Rent Guide has to re-served on a tenant if it changes.  The actual guide advises this, but the legislation doesn’t require it.  To be safe we suggest you do re-issue it when it changes.