Suspended Posession Order.

[correction999]

A good friend of mine seems to be having problems with a few tenants and in the latest 1 has been late paying her rent for a long time.
Anyway, he has served the required order stating she wants posession under grounds 8&11 - the rent was still late and now filed for posession via the online service.
She has a date, but the tenant is a nice person and is missing payments due to financial problems and not because she is doing it on purpose.
I think my friend (landlady) wants something official from the court to make the tenant pay the rent + £50 per month off the arrears (some £2000) rather than evict her.

As the original tenancy was an AST (3-years ago) and it has just been rolling over .. If the landlady asks the court can they still issue a suspended posession order, or is this only for council/mortgaged properties ?

I also presume if they can, she needs to ask for it at the hearing in a few weeks ?

Thanks

[old_andrew2007]

bump

[Esio Trot]

If there were two months rent unpaid when the s8 notice was issued and also on the date of the hearing, a possession order must be granted unless the plaintiff (landlord) agrees otherwise.

She needs the possession order, otherwise it means starting the whole thing again (unless, unusually, she goes for a "liberty to restore" type thing). However, she can agree to it being suspended. It is quite common for the tenant to agree that they will pay the rent on time in future, plus £x towards the arrears.

If the tenant defaults on the suspended order, the landlord just need to ask the court to enforce the order, rather than starting again.