Jarvis v Evans & Anor

Under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, “serving notice to terminate a tenancy” includes serving a notice under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, even though that notice does not itself end the tenancy.

A section 8 notice served by an unlicensed landlord in breach of section 7 of the 2014 Act is invalid. The criminal offence created by section 7 does not make the prohibition exclusively criminal. Section 43 preserves the validity and enforceability of tenancy provisions, but does not save a statutory notice served unlawfully. Section 44 is a supplementary belt-and-braces provision and does not limit section 7.

The appellant landlord owned a Welsh dwelling let to the respondents under an assured shorthold tenancy. He served a notice under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, relying on rent arrears, and obtained a possession order at first instance.

On appeal, the tenants argued that the notice was ineffective because the landlord was not registered or licensed under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 when it was served. The County Court at Swansea allowed their appeal. The Court of Appeal considered whether section 7(2)(f) applied to a section 8 notice and, if so, whether breach of section 7 made the notice invalid.

1. Appeal dismissed. The landlord’s lack of a licence when he served the section 8 notice rendered it invalid. Baker LJ and Hickinbottom LJ agreed with Newey LJ.
2. Scope of section 7(2)(f). The phrase “serving notice to terminate a tenancy” in the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 includes a section 8 notice. Such a notice is a step taken to bring the tenancy to an end, even though the tenancy itself ends only through the statutory possession process under the Housing Act 1988. Limiting section 7(2)(f) to notices which themselves terminate tenancies would leave it virtually nugatory for assured tenancies.
3. The structure and purpose of the 2014 Act support that construction. Section 7 regulates property management activities, and service of a section 8 notice naturally falls within that regime. The possibility of dispensing with notice under section 8(1)(b) of the 1988 Act did not make the licensing restriction meaningless, particularly because dispensing with notice is unavailable for ground 8 and is otherwise limited to relatively exceptional cases: Braintree DC v Vincent [2004] EWCA Civ 415.
4. Effect of breach. Section 7 states that an unlicensed landlord must not perform the listed activities. The criminal sanction in section 7(5) does not exclude civil consequences. The wording is capable of making a notice ineffective, consistently with section 44 of the 2014 Act and section 215 of the Housing Act 2004. The court endorsed the reasoning in Evans v Fleri that it would be surprising if an unlawful notice could nevertheless support possession.
5. Section 43 of the 2014 Act preserves tenancy obligations and contractual provisions despite illegality. It does not address the validity of a notice required by statute. Section 44 overlaps section 7 in relation to unlicensed landlords but also covers unregistered landlords, so it is best understood as supplementary rather than as limiting section 7.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appeal and held that the section 8 notice was invalid. [2020] EWCA Civ 854.
• County Court at Swansea: on 20 August 2019, allowed the tenants’ appeal and held that the notice was ineffective because the landlord was not registered or licensed under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014.
• County Court at Haverfordwest: District Judge Pratt had made a possession order based on rent arrears under grounds 8, 10 and 11 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988.