Section 146 Notice Serving.

Section 146 of the Law of Property Act 1925 covers breaches of a commercial lease covenant other than non-payment of rent – typically unauthorised alterations, change of use, subletting without consent, and disrepair. If your tenant has broken any covenant of that kind and you want to force a remedy, or lay the groundwork for forfeiture if they don’t, this is the notice that has to be served first. We currently offer this service for commercial leases only.

No – Section 146 does not apply to non-payment of rent (s146(11) of the Law of Property Act 1925). If your tenant is in commercial rent arrears you don’t need a Section 146 notice, and serving one would be wrong. Strikes can help two ways instead: to recover the rent without ending the lease, or if you want possession back.

Your solicitor drafts or approves the notice; Strikes serves it. That split matters – drafting a Section 146 notice is a legal act, and getting it wrong on scope, remedy period or wording can invalidate the whole forfeiture route. Send us the notice signed and ready to go, along with your lease, and we handle correct, provable service and the court-ready certificate.

We need the Section 146 notice itself (signed by your solicitor or you, with any schedules attached), a copy of the lease so we can verify the service provisions, and the tenant’s name and service address. You’ll also need to provide land registry title documents, proof of ID for the landlord, and details plus evidence of the breach itself. If your lease specifies a particular method of service, flag it – we’ll follow whatever the lease requires.

From a complete instruction, service is usually achieved within two days. Section 146 matters are usually time-sensitive – the sooner the notice is served, the sooner the remedy period starts running and the sooner you can move to forfeiture if the tenant doesn’t comply. Urgent service is available on a case-by-case basis and may attract an additional fee.

We serve using the method your lease specifies – personal service, first-class post, recorded delivery, or affixing to the premises where the lease allows. Whichever method applies, we record the date, time, address, method and identity of the person served, take contemporaneous evidence where appropriate, and issue a detailed report and certificate of service designed to stand up in any subsequent forfeiture proceedings.

Serving is carried out by trained enforcement personnel overseen by Andrew McDermott, our in-house Authorised High Court Enforcement Officer. Attendance itself is carried out by one of our process servers or enforcement agents, working under his oversight. The firm is a member of the High Court Enforcement Officers Association, so attendance and record-keeping follow recognised professional standards – which matters, because the evidence chain has to survive scrutiny if the matter proceeds to forfeiture.

Refused or unsuccessful service isn’t wasted work – it’s evidence. We make up to three attempts at the address, and where in-person service still isn’t achieved, service by post is often available as a fallback method. We record every attendance in full: the date, time, address, method attempted, and the reason for any refusal or absence, with contemporaneous photographs where appropriate. That documentation is included in the certificate of service and can support alternative service methods, or a court application if one becomes necessary.

Our fee for serving a Section 146 notice starts from £975 plus VAT, plus the separate process serving fee for the attendance itself. Whether you can recover Strikes’ fee from the tenant depends on your lease – most modern commercial leases include an indemnity or costs covenant covering fees incurred in the preparation and service of a Section 146 notice, meaning the tenant reimburses you for correctly instructed service costs.

The three do very different jobs. CRAR is for unpaid commercial rent and doesn’t end the lease. Forfeiture ends the lease – and for any breach other than rent arrears, forfeiture legally requires a Section 146 notice to be served first. So if your tenant is in a non-rent breach and you want it remedied or the lease ended, Section 146 service is the mandatory first step.