If you are served with a Section 42 Notice or a Section 13 Notice, you should take legal advice immediately.  If you fail to respond to the Notice of Claim or do not respond in the appropriate way, you are at risk of losing out.

Even if you are happy to deal with the leaseholder ‘informally’, you will need a solicitor to deal with the grant of the new lease to the tenant, or with the conveyancing of the freehold interest if you are disposing of it.  This is not something you can do yourself.

If represented, the tenant is unlikely to want to make a payment to you in person as there can be legal difficulties in completing any lease in such a way were the counter party is not a solicitor.

In an extreme case it might be possible for one party to be represented and to draft a document for signature only by the other but this has a serious disadvantage that the unrepresented party is not able to receive legal advice on the nature or effect of the document and is at risk of losing out.