To Spam or Not to Spam- Statutory Notices and Service by Email
A recent decision regarding taxi licensing has caught my eye, courtesy of a report by the excellent barristers at Francis Taylor Building who acted on the case. Given that I mostly write about property and housing matters you might wonder why I have suddenly developed an interest in taxi licensing. Sadly, I haven’t! But this decision has important implications across a range of local authority enforcement matters.
In this case Maidstone Council sought to revoke a taxi driver’s licence. They emailed him a notice to that effect rather than posting it. The notice went into the spam folder for the taxi driver’s email and so he did not get it for some time. As a result he missed the strict 21 day time limit for appealing such a revocation to the Magistrates. It was argued before the Magistrates and then before the High Court that the time limit had not stared to run until the email was actually seen by the taxi driver because it had not been properly served.
Renters’ Rights Act 2025 News:-Information Sheet Published
The government has published the Information Sheet which landlords must give to tenants by 31st May or face a potential £7,000.00 fine and must be provided if the tenancy is an assured or assured shorthold tenancy, was created before 1st May 2026 and has a wholly or partly written record of terms.
Letting agents who manage a landlord's property must also give tenants the sheet, even if the landlord has already done so.
How to Serve the Information Sheet
A copy must be given to every tenant named on the tenancy agreement but is only valid when downloaded, and must be provided in the exact PDF format.
The Information Sheet MUST be provided to tenants :-
In printed hard copy format, which is posted or hand-delivered
OR
by sending the Information Sheet in an email or text as an attachment.
The link CANNOT be emailed or sent as a text as this will not be valid.
How will Letting Agents be spending the next 45 Days?
The government will be publishing statutory documents - templates - for landlords and of course, letting agents to use. Once the Information Sheet, Written Statement of Information & Terms, updated Section 8 (Form 3A) and Section 13 (Form 4A), time needs to be set aside to read and familiarise the whole of the letting team with these documents.
Relying on CRM systems and PropTech to streamline and speed up processes is great, however, questions surrounding the purpose of these documents, how they are served, consequences of non-compliance, need to be answered and that remit sits with the negotiators, valuers, property management team and in some respects directors and decisions makers.
Section 8 Notice & It’s Purpose
Before the introduction of the assured tenancy regime, most private residential tenancies were governed by Rent Act 1977.
Under that framework, tenants enjoyed security of tenure, meaning that landlords could only regain possession on a limited number of statutory grounds.
The courts exercised discretion and, in many cases, possession would only be granted if it was considered reasonable to do so.
As a consequence, the Rent Act system was widely regarded as offering tenants a very high level of protection, but it also significantly restricted landlords’ ability to recover possession of their properties.