Housing Solicitors

A possession claim was dismissed after the judge accepted that the Section 21 Notice was invalid and criticised the conduct of those assisting the Claimant.

The judge also said there was something “gravely amiss” about the way the litigation was conducted by Landlord Advice UK, an unauthorised landlord advisory service, on behalf of the Claimant.

Sadaf Mir, of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, acted for the tenant in Hammad & Hammad v Paolini. County Court at Clerkenwell & Shoreditch, and represented her at the hearing on 27 June 2022. The matter was reported on Nearly Legal (a link to the article can be found below).

It was a possession claim based on a section 21 notice issued on 27 October 2020, in which we filed and served a Defence on 20 November 2020; the first possession hearing took place on 27 June 2022, heard by District Judge Pigram.

The main line of Defence was that the Section 21 Notice dated 27 May 2020 (signed by S Charles of Landlord Advice UK) was not in the prescribed form 6A. The correct version of the form 6A at the time was the version introduced by paragraph 7 of Schedule 29 of the Coronavirus Act 2020. The footer of the section 21 notice said it was the July 2019 version. Further, the form said it was valid for 6 months, when the prescribed form 6A in place at the time was valid for 10 months, the District Judge commented that this was prejudicial to the tenant given the form was potentially valid for 4 months longer than was stated. The possession claim was dismissed and the Claimants ordered to pay the Defendant’s costs.

The Defence also raised that Landlord Advice UK appeared to be conducting litigation on the Claimants’ behalf when they were not authorised to do so, and invited the court to strike out the claim. During the hearing we relied upon the case of Ndole Assets Ltd v Designer M&E Services UK Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2865.

The Section 21 Notice had been prepared by and signed by Landlord Advice UK, the certificate of service was also signed by them and the claim form provided their address as the address for service. Approximately a week before the hearing a Reply was filed with the court on the Claimant’s behalf, but not served upon us or the Defendant. On the day of the hearing when the existence of the reply came to our attention, we raised the lack of service with the solicitor’s agent who attended on behalf of the Claimant. Shortly afterwards we received an email from Landlord Advice UK sending us a copy of the Reply together with a witness statement. We drew this to the court’s attention.

Landlord Advice UK had instructed a solicitor's agent (Jeffries Solicitors) at the eleventh hour who was unable to successfully convince the court that Landlord Advice UK was not providing services which could properly be described as having conduct of litigation and that she was working under the supervision of a solicitor, given the said solicitor did not appear to have conduct of the matter in any meaningful way. During the hearing the District Judge asked the Claimant to clarify the extent of Landlord Advice UK’s involvement. In response to the Judge’s questions the Claimant said he did expect them (Landlord Advice UK) to act as a lawyer would and understood them to be dealing with everything for him in respect of the possession. The first he heard about the involvement of the solicitor’s agent was on the Friday before the hearing (which was on the Monday).

The Judge commented that “there is something gravely amiss in the way in which the way litigation has been conducted in this claim.” He further stated that Landlord Advice UK appeared to have instructed a solicitor’s agent to avoid being caught by the restrictions placed by the Legal Services Act 2007 and who had not filed a Notice of Acting. The Judge granted the agent a one off right of audience in order to dispose of the claim. The Judge further commented that although he had not heard from Landlord Advice UK, he added that “it seems to be a blatant abuse or attempted abuse of the system to bypass restrictions on rights of audience. It would have been wrong for me not to have remarked on this.”


Sadaf Mir is the Duncan Lewis housing solicitor with conduct of this matter and represented the Defendant at the hearing on 27 June 2022. She is experienced in all kinds of housing matters, and specialises in achieving successful outcomes in homelessness cases. If you are affected by any of the issues raised by this article contact her for advice by email at Sadafm@duncanlewis.com or via telephone on the 020 7923 8468.

This case has also been featured on the Nearly Legal website and you can read their coverage here