An historic ruling from the Court of Appeal this week as reports state that the judgement is in favour of agents and landlords rather than tenants.

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The Northwood Solihull v Fearn/Cooke/Ors case  was taken to court because of the Solihull’s branch using a Section 8 notice to evict a couple who have refused to pay rent since 2019.

The unscrupulous tenants Mr Fearn and Ms Cook contended that their eviction notice failed to be signed by two authorised personnel or by a company director with a witness, which they argued breached section 44 of the Companies Act 2006.

The High Court judges passed its judgement that the law was not appropriate to eviction notices, however they agreed with the couple that it did in fact apply to a confirmatory certificate for their rental deposit.

The agent’s legal representative argued that even having a second signature would not have made one single difference to the tenants’ situation.

Within eight days of the court case it was taken to the Court of Appeal with the High Court judges giving their verdict in favour of Northwoods.

All agents and landlord can now breathe a huge sigh of relief as the ruling makes clear that a single authorised employee of a letting agent or landlord is legally entitled to sign a section 8 notice or section 21 notice as well as a tenancy deposit certificate, without the threat of facing legal consequences.

The importance of the decision is that if the agents had been ruled against for failing to provide two signatures would open a ‘Pandora’s Box’ of claims being triggered against agents and landlords.

Richard Merrick of PIMS,said: “So a couple of ‘grifter tenants’ belief in their own apparent PRS expertise has now helped agents and landlords to have no fear of any legal repercussions when using a one signatory.