Given notice but without Section21?

[WorriedTenant12]

My family and have been renting the same property for several years. Last year we started looking for somewhere to buy and had flagged as such with owner. It took longer than planned then in early January we got an email from her ending our tenancy two months later. We asked for a bit more time and got two more months. We have now found somewhere but it will take some time to close sale etc. Having had a chat with a friend it transpires that - and I didn’t know this was vital - that the landlord didn’t actually give us proper notice eg through a section 21 form, instead it was just an email. Any advice? We have been looking into short term lets but this has shaken me a bit. Are we within our rights to challenge her?

Might be worth running this past the Shelter helpline.

I would just keep saying you can't move out yet. She will soon realise that she hadn't given correct notice if she tries to act on it. She would then be able to give correct notice.

If you tell her now she hasn't given notice correctly she could do so now and you have to leave in 2 months (or following eviction proceedings). So it's in your interests not to do so until she tries to get you to go.

Section 21 hardly means anything at all. Just months of waiting you’ve got plenty of time to complete yr purchadr

Thanks. We ended up giving her notice which, as you can imagine, did not go down very well!