Grounds for possession under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025
By Alistair Cantor
The most prominent casualty of the old legal framework which the Renters’ Rights Act will bring to pass when brought into force is section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 – the long-heralded demise of ‘no-fault evictions’. Gone too will be the familiar concept of assured shorthold tenancies, and fixed terms, to be replaced by (potentially perpetual) periodic assured tenancies. The attention of landlords, tenants and their lawyers is now firmly on how such tenancies will then be able to be brought to an end, should a landlord wish to do so against the wishes of their tenant.
The only mechanism a landlord will be able to use is relying on a ground for possession under Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988. That Schedule will be well familiar to most with involvement in L&T law, but it too will be subject to extensive revisions. This article will look at the key changes, and their implications.
The changes in overview
There are 21 grounds for possession set out under Schedule 2 presently. That number will increase to 30. As presently, those 30 grounds will be either discretionary or mandatory. The majority of amendments are to the latter category, with many of the old discretionary grounds surviving to the new era.
Mandatory rent arrears Ground 8
The existing ground 8 provides that the court must make a possession order where at least 8 weeks or two months rent is in arrears at the date of the notice seeking possession and the hearing at which the claim is considered. It is of key importance to both landlords and tenants due to the certainty it provides: to the former, that possession will be regained, precluding ever-increasing arrears; to the latter, that they will certainly lose their home.
The Act will effect significant changes to its use. First, a notice of seeking possession relying on the ground must give four weeks’ notice before court proceedings can commence, versus the current two weeks’ notice. Secondly, the minimum level of arrears required for the ground will increase to 13 weeks or three months.
This means that a tenant may well be four full months in arrears before a claim is even issued at court. Combine that with the current state of play in the county courts – recent MoJ statistics showed that the average time between issue of a claim and regaining possession in Q2 2025 was 33.8 weeks, nearly 8 full months – and one can well understand how substantial concerns might arise on the part of landlords. In a scenario where the tenant is fully in default and unwilling to leave, a landlord might have to eat a full year of arrears before getting their property back, plus whatever costs and time it takes to get it relet.
A further sting in the tail for landlords is that for the purposes of calculating arrears under either ground, any part of the arrears the tenant is due by way of universal credit but has not yet received is to be disregarded. Queue allegations by tenants at the court door that they are waiting for housing benefit and potential lengthy adjournments while the parties await responses from the DWP.
Grounds 1 and 1A
These new grounds will permit landlords to regain possession where they or a family member wish to live in the property, or they need to sell it; so important in a world where fixed terms no longer exist. However, neither can be used in the first year of the tenancy and any notice of seeking possession relying on either ground must give at least four months’ notice prior to the issue of any claim at court. Therefore, any landlord with a potential need to live in or sell a property within the next 18 months may well hesitate to let it out in the interim.
The Act will also introduce measures to police abuse of each ground (and other grounds more generally). Landlords who employ them without a genuine basis may face substantial financial penalties and even criminal prosecution: see the separate article on this subject in this edition of Cornerstone’s Housing Newsletter.
Other grounds
Other grounds make provision for a variety of scenarios:
- The existing mandatory and discretionary grounds (7A and 14) aimed at tackling ASB and criminal activity are retained.
- Landlords will be able to employ a mandatory redevelopment ground as presently, albeit with reformulated criteria.
- A new mandatory ground 6B allows landlords to retake possession where necessary to comply with any enforcement action or licensing requirement, for example prohibition orders, the refusal of an application for an HMO license, or in order to comply with a planning enforcement notice.
- Tenancies devolving under wills or intestacies, Mortgagees exercising powers of sale and superior landlords, agricultural workers, student accommodation, supported accommodation and various niche scenarios involving social landlords.
Comment
The key issue for landlords will be court capacity. For many, the key attraction of section 21 was that it represented a quick and efficient means of regaining possession as swiftly as possible. I suspect most could live with the new grounds for possession if the government were to ensure that possession claims were heard swiftly after issue and possession orders executed promptly after being made. That simply doesn’t take place in the county court system presently. The government has stated the courts will be ready for the post-Act world, but the jury must remain out on whether that will in fact be the case.
