Lenders will now have to give occupiers longer notice of residential possession proceedings.

Under CPR 55.10, a mortgage claimant has to send a notice to the property (addressed to ‘the occupiers’) not less than 14 days before the date of the possession hearing. However, that rule has now been updated so that, from 6 April, a notice must be sent to ‘the occupiers’ within five days of receiving notification of the hearing date by the court. In practice, this will mean that most occupiers will receive around five to seven weeks’ notice of the hearing date. 



Note that there are concerns that all these notices are fairly pointless since they are addressed to ‘the occupiers’ and, in practice, may well be put in the bin as junk mail.