Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026 by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and with it the idea that a landlord can recover a property without giving a reason. Possession now runs through section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 as amended: statutory grounds, prescribed notice periods, and evidence before a judge if the tenant does not leave. The grounds that matter most in practice are arrears, sale, moving back in, and antisocial behaviour, and each has its own rules.
The grounds a landlord actually uses
Rent arrears: the mandatory arrears ground now requires at least three months' arrears, both when notice is served and at the hearing, on four weeks' notice. Discretionary arrears grounds sit beside it for persistent late payment.
Selling the property: a ground for possession with four months' notice, not usable in the first twelve months of a tenancy, and the property cannot then be re-marketed to let for twelve months after relying on it.
You or close family moving in: the same four months' notice and twelve month protections apply.
Antisocial behaviour: notice can be immediate for serious cases, and the courts treat it as a priority.
Specialist grounds exist alongside, including a ground for student HMOs let on an annual cycle.
What this means for how you run a tenancy
Every ground is an evidence exercise. Arrears need a clean rent ledger and a chasing history; a sale ground needs the sale to be genuine and documented; behaviour grounds need contemporaneous records. The landlords who struggle under the new law are not the ones with bad tenants, they are the ones with good tenants and no paperwork.
Two compliance points block possession entirely: an unprotected deposit and, in a licensing area, a missing licence. Both are cheap to fix before a problem and expensive after one, and our guides to selective licensing in Nottingham and deposits cover them.
Where a tenancy has already gone wrong, the notices and proceedings run through Trent Law Solicitors at the prices published on Landlord services and fees: £240 for a section 8 notice, £600 for issuing proceedings, £360 for a warrant, each including any VAT. On our managed services the evidence file is already built, which is most of the battle. General information, not legal advice on your case; for that, Trent Law can act.
