Landlord Wants Tenant to Leave

A tenancy of someone's home, starting on or after 28 February 1997, will, in most cases, be an assured shorthold tenancy. Take advice early if there are doubts about what type of tenancy is being terminated. The procedures for ending a tenancy are different, depending on the type of tenancy.

Service of Notices

In most cases, the procedure will involve serving some notice. The type and format of notice may vary depending on the circumstances of the case. Information about specific notices is given below, but as an introduction, here are some general points about the service of the notice:

The tenancy agreement may specify the method and manner by which notices may be served, and if the landlord does not follow the required procedure, the landlord's claim for possession could be struck out by the court. You should, therefore, follow any specified method in the agreement.

Without a specified service method, service by post, obtaining a free-of-charge certificate of posting from any post office is recommended as a minimum. Only use recorded delivery if you are confident the tenant will sign the document. Otherwise, a failure could prove they did not receive the notice (it may be a tenancy requirement to use recorded delivery, so check first). Hand delivery can be helpful, and a photograph at the door could be taken. Only take a witness if they would be willing to attend court. If the tenancy agreement allows for delivery by email, a copy can be sent electronically. However, a posted copy is also recommended because obtaining proof of postage for the court is helpful. When applying to the court, a landlord will be required to supply information about the service of notice.

If the notice is in the wrong form or incorrectly served, it could mean that the landlord will lose the case. Take advice if unsure what to do.

You should always add time to any notice to allow delivery by post or otherwise. Courts often examine court rules to decide how long a notice may take. For example, court documents are deemed delivered the second business day after posting, and if posted on a Thursday, they are not considered delivered until the following Monday. Therefore, it is good practice always to allow an additional four days for any notice to be served.

It would be best if you served a single notice containing all names where the tenancy is joint and several (multiple people named on a single tenancy agreement).

Agent's Service

A letting/managing agent may serve any of the notices discussed below. The notice should be made from the landlord and served by the agent. To make possession for the landlord smoother, you should use the exact names shown on the tenancy agreement (for example, the landlord's name) on the notice. This avoids confusion as to whom the notice is from.

Companies Signing notices

A landlord or an agent (with authority from the landlord) who is a limited company can sign section 8 or 21 notices without the formalities of section 44 Companies Act 2006 (Northwood (Solihull) Ltd v Fearn & Ors[2022] EWCA Civ 40).

Assured Shorthold Tenancies

We will discuss only the procedures for ending an assured shorthold tenancy for the remainder of this section. We will briefly discuss other types of tenancy in later sections of this page.

Serving a Section 21 Notice

The Section 21 notice and procedure is considered a no-reason procedure as the landlord doesn't need to establish any wrongdoing by the tenant. The landlord only has to prove that the tenancy is an assured shorthold, that the appropriate notice has been validly served and that the fixed period has expired.

Although there is no reason required, landlords commonly use Section 21 instead of or as a backup to a Section 8 notice (so if something goes wrong with the Section 8 claim, there is a fallback claim to the Section 21 notice - see later for Section 8 grounds). For example, a landlord may choose to issue a Section 21 notice for the following:

rent arrears
breach of tenancy
anti-social behaviour

It's important to note that the notice should never include a reason, nor should any covering letter; otherwise, it could invalidate section 21.

To obtain possession, the landlord will need to serve a section 21 notice and get an order from the court to bring the tenancy to an end. The notice must be served on the tenant at least two months before the landlord wants the tenancy to end, although, except for a break clause, the notice can't ask the tenant to leave before the last day of the fixed term.

When can the notice be served?

You cannot serve a section 21 notice before a tenancy has been granted.

If there is a break clause, it can be activated using a section 21 notice as long as the terms of the break clause are followed precisely and is at least two months in length. A landlord should not have a break clause without the tenant having the same right, or the landlord's break clause could be invalid.

You may not serve the notice until at least four months from the start of the original tenancy, and the date the tenant is asked to leave must be at least two months from when the notice is deemed served. The date the notice asks the tenant to go is known as the expiry date of the notice. The four-month rule (where service is prohibited) does not start a new four-month period for a renewal (where the same tenant(s) are given a new tenancy for the same property by the same landlord).

What form should be used?

The landlord must use a prescribed form known as "Form 6A" when serving a Section 21 notice.

You can obtain the prescribed form from here, or you can get it from landlord associations or solicitors.

What expiry date should I put on the notice?

The expiry date of a notice is when the tenant is asked to leave the property.

It used to be the case that a Section 21 notice served during a periodic tenancy with a rental period of 2 monthly or less (e.g. monthly) had to expire "after the last day of a period of the tenancy". That rule has now been removed.

Where the rent is two months or less (the usual rental period is calendar monthly), the expiry date must be at least two calendar months. Also, some days for service should be added (a minimum of four days is recommended for service).

For example, if the notice is served on 15 July, it should expire on 19 September (or later).

For a periodic tenancy, if the rental periods are greater than two months (for example, a quarterly, six-monthly or yearly rent), the notice must be at least the length of a rental period up to six months, and the notice must expire the day before rent is due. For example:

Quarterly rent = 3 months' notice, rounded up to expire at the end of a period of the tenancy
Six monthly rent = six months' notice, rounded up to expire at the end of a period of the tenancy
Yearly rent = six months' notice, rounded up to expire at the end of a period of the tenancy

You should also check the terms of the tenancy agreement, which may require more extended service or require the notice to expire on a particular day. If so, you should follow the terms after allowing at least two months (or more if the rental period is over two months).

If the tenancy is still in the fixed term when the notice is served, it must also expire on or after the last day of that fixed term.

How long does the notice last?

In most cases, the Section 21 notice must be acted upon (by seeking a possession order through the courts) within six months of its service. In a periodic tenancy where the rental period is greater than two months (quarterly rent, for example), the notice must be acted upon within four months of its expiration.

What documents/provisions are required to serve a Section 21 notice?

All documents and requirements legally required before the landlord can serve section 21 are explained throughout this guide, including the penalty of not being allowed to serve the notice if something hasn't been done. However, as a quick summary, the following is required to serve a section 21 notice:

All assured shorthold tenancies

you must have protected the deposit in an authorised scheme within 30 days (or other time scales for tenancies before 6 April 2012)
you must have given the deposit prescribed information

Assured shorthold tenancies granted or renewed on or after 1 October 2015

In addition to the deposit provisions, the following are required:

how to rent guide must have been given
you must have given an energy performance certificate
gas safety record must have been given (a) for the period before the tenant occupied and (b) the most recent gas safety record.

Assured shorthold tenancies granted on or after 1 June 2019

In addition to the above, the following is required:

The landlord must not have received a prohibited payment under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, and the payment has not been returned.

Please see each section of this handbook for more detailed information about the requirements mentioned above.

Court Order After Service of a Section 21 Notice

After a section 21 notice has been served and expired, The requirements for an order for possession under section 21 are:

that the tenancy is an assured shorthold tenancy
that any fixed term of the tenancy has expired
that a notice drafted correctly under the provisions of section 21 has been served on the tenant and has expired
that any deposit paid was duly protected within 30 days under the appropriate regulations for tenancies created on or after 6 April 2007 (or returned in full before service)
any licence required under the Housing Act 2004 (e.g., a mandatory House of Multiple Occupation licence) has been applied for.

And, for tenancies (including renewals) granted from 1 October 2015, the following must also apply in addition to the above:

at least four months from the original tenancy had passed before the notice was served
court proceedings were commenced within six months of service of the notice (or four months of expiry where the rental period exceeds two monthly)
"How to rent: the checklist for renting in England" was given under the tenancy before the notice was served
any energy performance certificate and gas safety record were given before occupation of the property (for the EPC, it may be acceptable that these are given before section 21 was served)
none of the retaliatory eviction provisions is satisfied (see later)

If the tenancy is evidenced in writing and the above requirements have been met, it may be possible to use the accelerated possession procedure using court form N5B. Otherwise, the standard method using forms N5 and N119 must be followed, involving a court hearing. The accelerated possession procedure may take up to six to eight weeks after applying to the court, depending on the court's caseload. The possession claims online service (PCOL) is unsuitable for a section 21 claim as it's only available for rent arrears grounds after a section 8 notice has been served.

The court cannot grant an order for possession to take effect during the first six months of the tenancy using the Section 21 procedure. This six-month 'moratorium' only counts from the first tenancy agreement with that particular tenant for a specific property, not subsequent contracts. But if a tenant rents a room in a shared house and moves to another room, this will count as a new tenancy, and the six-month moratorium will apply.

It is not uncommon for landlords to think they cannot issue an assured shorthold tenancy for less than six months, but this is not true. It is just that it is impossible to get a Court to order repossession during the first six months of the first tenancy (and for post-1 October 2015 tenancies, the notice cannot be served in the first four months of the original agreement).

To End a Fixed-Term or Periodic Tenancy Where There Are Grounds

There will be cases when a landlord has agreed to a tenancy, and things are not working out with the tenant. Suppose a landlord wishes to possess the property during the fixed or periodic term of an assured or assured shorthold tenancy. In that case, they can only seek possession if one of the grounds for possession in Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 (as amended) applies (see below).

Suppose the tenancy is still in the fixed term. In that case, a clause must provide possession to be sought on one of the grounds (sometimes known as a re-entry or forfeiture clause, even though a landlord cannot use forfeiture for assured/assured shorthold tenancies).

The grounds for possession are divided into mandatory grounds (upon which the court must order possession if the landlord proves the allegation) and discretionary grounds (upon which the court may order possession if the allegations are proven and if the court considers it reasonable to make the order).

The grounds must be specified in a section 8 notice, and the notice must be in a prescribed form.

Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 also specifies what minimum notice period must be given - and this depends on the ground(s) being used. Many landlords will need to advise about the service of notices and termination using section 8 until they become familiar with the procedure.

A landlord must consider what they wish to achieve by commencing legal proceedings to end the tenancy. They must consider the time, effort, and cost involved and whether they have used all other methods to resolve a problem.

It may be beneficial to obtain a possession order, even on discretionary grounds, as the terms of any order may assist the landlord in influencing a tenant to change their behaviour or, pay the rent arrears by instalments or maintain the garden or whatever has been the problem.

Because the grounds of a Section 8 notice need to be proven in court, it is good practice to consider serving a Section 21 notice (discussed earlier) in addition to a Section 8 notice. This provides the landlord with a fallback position should the Section 8 notice fail.

The most common grounds when using a Section 8 notice are grounds 8 (two months or more arrears), ground 10 (any rent arrears) and ground 11 (persistently late paying the rent). These grounds are commonly combined into a single section 8 notice.

The grounds available are as follows:

Mandatory Grounds

Grounds 1-5 of the Housing Act 1988 require the landlord to serve notice before the tenancy commencement, warning the tenant that the landlord might seek possession for a reason stated in that ground. Sometimes, the court may waive the notice requirement if it is just and equitable. Grounds 1-5 are:

Ground 1 can be used if the property was, or after the let, intended to be returned to the landlord as their own home. For this ground to be successful, the landlord must have notified the tenant in writing before the tenancy started that they intended one day to ask for the property back on this ground.

Ground 2 relates to a lender's right to possession. The landlord must often serve this notice on the tenants if the property is subject to a mortgage.

Ground 3 requires that the fixed term is less than eight months and the property has been let as a holiday home within the preceding 12 months.

Ground 4 is only for further and higher education providers.

Ground 5 is where the dwelling is owned for a minister of religion to carry out their duties better and is needed for such a purpose.

The remaining mandatory grounds, grounds 6-8, do not require notice to be given in advance of the start of the tenancy.

Ground 6 relates to recovering possession when the landlord must do substantial building work. A landlord cannot use it against a tenant already in the property when the landlord bought it. This is particularly important as a tenant may be a regulated tenant and be protected by the provisions of the Rent Act 1977 rather than the Housing Act 1988. A landlord who purchases a property should check the date the person moved into the property and not just accept that a shorthold contract supplied by the seller is shorthold.

Ground 7 can recover possession after the tenant's death, where the tenancy has devolved under their will or intestacy.

Ground 7A contains five 'conditions', and a landlord is entitled to possession if one or more conditions are proven.

condition 1 - the tenant (or a person visiting) has been convicted of a serious offence in, or in the locality of, the dwelling-house or the crime was committed against the landlord or another person residing in the premises
condition 2 - a court has found that the tenant (or person visiting) has breached an injunction under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and the breach occurred in the locality of the dwelling or against the landlord or other persons residing
condition 3 - the tenant (or person residing) has breached a criminal behaviour order in the locality of the dwelling or against the landlord or other persons residing
condition 4 - the dwelling is or has been subject to a closure order, and access was prohibited for more than 48 hours
condition 5 - the tenant has been convicted under other specified offences.

Ground 7B The landlord has received a notice about the immigration status of the occupiers of the property.

Ground 8 relates to serious rent arrears and is one of the main grounds used by landlords of Housing Act 1988 tenancies seeking possession for rent arrears. Both at the date of service of the notice under section 8 and at the date of the hearing

if rent is payable weekly or fortnightly, at least eight weeks' rent is unpaid
if rent is payable monthly, at least two months' rent is unpaid
if rent is payable quarterly, at least one quarter's rent is more than three months in arrears or
if rent is payable yearly, at least three months' rent is more than three months in arrears.

Discretionary Grounds

The court must consider the landlord's claim; if proven, the judge can make an absolute or suspended order, usually with conditions. In some cases, the court may adjourn the proceedings on terms that the tenant is directed to comply with the requirements. The terms of the adjournment may allow the landlord to bring the matter back to court within a given period. To gain possession, the landlord will have to prove the facts and that it is reasonable for the court to award possession on the facts of the case.

Grounds 9-17 are all discretionary grounds. They refer to 'dwelling-house', but this expression would include a flat.

Ground 9 can be used where suitable alternative accommodation is available for the tenant or will be available for them when the order for possession takes effect.

Ground 10 is commonly used alongside ground 8 and can be used where some rent that is lawfully due from the tenant:-

Is unpaid on the date on which the proceedings for possession are begun and

Except where subsection (1)(b) of section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 applies, it was in arrears at the date of the service of the notice under that section relating to those proceedings.

Ground 11 is also commonly used alongside grounds 8 and 10. It can be used in cases where the tenant has persistently delayed paying rent, which has become lawfully due, whether or not any rent is in arrears on the date on which proceedings for possession are begun.

Ground 12 can be used where any obligation of the tenancy (other than one related to payment of rent) has been broken or not performed.

Ground 13 is for use where the condition of the dwelling-house (or any of the common parts) has deteriorated owing to acts of waste by, or the neglect or default of, the tenant or any other person residing there. In the case of an act of waste by, or the neglect or default of, a person lodging with the tenant or a sub-tenant of his or hers, the ground can also be used if the tenant has not taken such steps as they ought reasonably to have taken for the removal of the lodger or sub-tenant.

Ground 14 can be used in cases of anti-social behaviour committed by the tenant or any other person living with the tenant or visiting the property if that person:

has been guilty of conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to a person residing, visiting or otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the locality or,
has been guilty of conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to the landlord of the dwelling-house or a person employed (whether or not by the landlord) in connection with the exercise of the landlord's housing management functions and that is directly or indirectly related to or affects those functions or,
has been convicted of:-
- Using the dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes or an indictable (Crown Court) offence committed in, or in the locality of, the dwelling-house.

Ground 14ZA is for use where the tenant or an adult residing in the dwelling house has been convicted of an indictable offence during and at the scene of a riot in the United Kingdom.

Ground 15 can be used where the condition of any furniture provided for use under the tenancy has deteriorated, in the court's opinion, due to ill-treatment by the tenant or any other person residing in the dwelling house. In the case of ill-treatment by a person lodging with the tenant or by the tenant's sub-tenant, the tenant has not taken reasonable steps to remove the lodger or sub-tenant.

Ground 16 relates to where the dwelling-house was let to the tenant due to his employment by the landlord seeking possession or a previous landlord under the tenancy, and the tenant has ceased to be in that employment.

Ground 17 can be used where the tenant is the person, or one of the persons, to whom the tenancy was granted, and the landlord was induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or recklessly by either the tenant or a person acting on the tenant's instigation.

Court order after service of section 8 notice

Where the grounds used relate solely to rent arrears (grounds 8, 10 or 11), a landlord may use the Possession Claim Online service (PCOL).

To use the PCOL service, follow these steps:

register with PCOL
complete all details on the screen, including landlord contact details, tenancy details and information about the arrears
you will be asked to add a rent account showing how the arrears have accumulated
make payment of the court fee.

After completion, you'll be notified of a court date.

If the grounds are not solely rent arrears, a paper application to the court using forms N5 and N119 will be required. If the landlord prefers not to use the online service, the same forms can also be used for a rent arrears grounds claim.

A landlord may use several grounds on an application for possession if several grounds apply to the facts of a case. For example, it is possible (and typical) to use grounds 8, 10, and 11 simultaneously. There is a good reason to specify all the grounds that apply. If a tenant reduces the rent arrears to below the specified sum at the hearing date, and the landlord has only pleaded ground 8, the claim could be dismissed. However, if the alternative grounds also apply, the court can still make an order for possession, which may be absolute or suspended.

As discussed earlier, the time required before court proceedings can commence on a section 8 notice varies considerably depending on each particular ground. The most common grounds - 8, 10 and 11, require at least 14 days to be given, although it is always best to allow 18 days to include the service time of the notice.

If one of the mandatory grounds is used and proven, the judge must make an order for possession. The date of possession should typically be 14 days from the hearing date, but the judge can postpone it to a period no longer than six weeks after making the order.

A landlord may not know if a tenant will be represented in court until shortly before the hearing, so any landlord contemplating legal proceedings should seek advice before doing so.

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