Section 21 Has Gone: What the End of No-Fault Evictions Means for Landlords

The biggest change to English tenancy law in nearly four decades is now in force. On 1 May 2026, Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 was abolished, ending the so-called no-fault eviction. From that date, every assured shorthold tenancy in England converted automatically to a periodic tenancy, and a landlord who wants possession of their property must prove a legal ground for it.

This was not a surprise. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025, and the government confirmed the commencement date well in advance. The last Section 21 notices had to be served by 30 April 2026, and any possession proceedings relying on those notices must be issued by 31 July 2026. Miss that window and the notice dies with it. It cannot be reissued, and the landlord must instead rely on the new framework.

That new framework is Section 8, substantially revised. It is worth understanding properly, because the detail is where landlords will win or lose.

The new possession grounds

Under the reworked Section 8, every possession claim needs a qualifying ground, and several of the most commonly used grounds have been tightened.

• • Grounds 1 and 1A, covering a landlord moving into the property or selling it, now require four months' notice and cannot be used at all during the first twelve months of a tenancy.
• • Ground 1A carries a sting: if a landlord serves notice to sell and the sale falls through, the property cannot be relet for sixteen months from the date the notice was originally served.
• • Ground 8, the mandatory rent arrears ground, has been raised from two months of arrears to three, with the notice period extended to four weeks. Crucially, the arrears must still stand at three months on the date of the court hearing, which gives tenants scope to pay down just enough to defeat the claim.
• • A new Ground 4A protects the student market, allowing landlords of student HMOs to recover possession in line with the academic year, again on four months' notice.
• • Ground 14, covering antisocial behaviour, survives largely intact but remains discretionary.

The accelerated possession procedure, which allowed many Section 21 claims to be decided on paper, has been abolished alongside it. Every possession case now requires a court hearing. In practice, landlords should plan on a realistic timeline of six to seven months or more from the point arrears begin to accrue to bailiff enforcement.

Compliance is no longer optional housekeeping

Before a Section 8 notice can even be served, a landlord needs their paperwork in order: a valid deposit protection certificate, a current gas safety certificate, an Electrical Installation Condition Report, a valid Energy Performance Certificate and a signed copy of the How to Rent guide. A gap in any of these can derail a possession claim before it starts.

There is also an immediate administrative task. Landlords must provide existing tenants with the official Renters' Rights Act information sheet by 31 May 2026. And the penalty regime has real weight behind it: civil penalties run up to 7,000 pounds for standard breaches and up to 40,000 pounds for serious or repeated offences.

This is phase one of a longer programme

The 1 May changes are only the opening act. Later in 2026, the new Private Rented Sector Database launches, bringing mandatory landlord registration. A dedicated PRS Ombudsman is expected to be operational by around 2028. Further down the line, the government has proposed extending the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law on hazard remediation to the private rented sector, with timelines stretching towards the mid-2030s. Alongside all of this, phase one also banned rental bidding and introduced a new framework for rent increases.

It is worth noting the geography. All of this applies to England only. Scotland removed no-fault evictions back in 2017, and Wales runs its own regime under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

Will landlords leave the market?

Some will. The English Private Landlord Survey 2024 found that 31 percent of landlords were already planning to shrink their portfolios before any of this took effect, and 16 percent intended to sell everything within two years. The new regime will accelerate some of those exits, particularly among smaller self-managing landlords for whom the compliance burden is heaviest.

But there is another way to read this. Reduced rental supply in a market with persistent tenant demand tends to support rents. And the landlords best placed to thrive are those whose properties are professionally managed, fully documented and structurally compliant from day one. The cost of getting it wrong has gone up sharply; the value of getting it right has gone up with it.

For investors buying new-build stock with professional management in place, very little of the day-to-day burden lands on their desk. The legislation rewards exactly that model: modern, energy-efficient property, properly certificated, with experienced operators handling tenancies.

If you are weighing up how the Renters' Rights Act changes your position, or looking for investments structured to be compliant from completion, Silkwood Group helps UK and international investors access professionally managed developments built for this new era. Get in touch and we will talk you through the options.