A judge has ruled that a business that acted on behalf of a landlord to evict a tenant “crossed the line” in carrying out regulated legal services that only qualified solicitors are permitted to provide. Here’s a link to the full story which appeared on Litigation Future’s website: 

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/unregulated-eviction-service-crossed-line-into-litigation

It’s easy to see how landlords are tempted to use services such as “Remove a tenant” as an alternative to representing themselves, or paying for solicitor representation in legal proceedings. Not only did “Remove a tenant” break the law, the legal notice that they issued to repossess the property was faulty. The landlord had to go back to court to proceed with their claim using alternative grounds to repossess their property.

Legal expenses insurance for landlords provides a helpline to talk through correctly issuing a landlord’s notice to repossess and ARAG’s Landlord Legal Solutions policy allows your landlord clients to download the notices and a covering letter for free from our legal services website. If a tenant fails to leave on expiry of the notice, the policy pays legal costs for a regulated law firm to act for the insured.

According from their website “Remove a tenant” charge from £50 to issue a repossession notice, and the cost of preparing for a court hearing and representation is charged from £250 (+VAT) http://www.removeatenant.co.uk/legal-services/ - this is much more than the cost of Landlord’s Legal Solutions over the average term of a tenancy. Surely peace of mind and confidence that claims will be dealt with properly is surely an attractive prospect for customers who may be reluctant to opt in to legal expenses? I’ll leave you to guess the moral of this story...