What a landlord can and cannot do in England, now that section 21 is gone

Most people renting in England still believe their landlord holds the card that ends any argument: two months' notice, no reason, out. It was withdrawn on 1 May 2026, when section 21 was abolished and every private assured shorthold tenancy became periodic, with no end date. A section 21 notice now has no legal effect.

The opposite belief is just as wrong. You can still be evicted, and some grounds need no fault of yours: your landlord wants to move in, or is selling. The difference is that every route now ends in a courtroom, which checks things landlords routinely have not done.

This is England only. Each nation writes its own housing law: Wales a separate Act with different notices and terminology, Scotland its own tenancy and tribunal, Northern Ireland a third system. Check which of the four you are renting in first.

A notice is a request to a court, not an eviction

The sequence is fixed and there is no shortcut through it:

• a notice naming a ground;
• the notice expiring;
• a claim for possession;
• a possession order;
• a warrant;
• county court bailiffs.

Only bailiffs can remove you. A landlord who changes the locks, puts your belongings out or makes the home unliveable commits an offence under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, and councils prosecute for it, whatever your arrears.

Two grounds matter most because they are nobody's fault: your landlord wants to move in or house a close relative, or intends to sell. Both need four months' notice, and neither can require you to leave inside the first twelve months of the tenancy — which is not the same as a notice being invalid because it arrived inside that year, so read the date it expires, not the date it was served. A landlord who takes the property back on either ground may not then re-let or market it for twelve months, so a home said to be urgently for sale that reappears as a letting weeks later may be a breach the council can fine the landlord for. Exceptions are limited and the fine is the council's decision, not automatic — report it, and watch the listings.

Serious rent arrears carry a much shorter notice period, four weeks. Your own notice is two months, ending in line with a rent period. The current grounds and notice periods are on gov.uk.

An unprotected deposit now blocks the eviction itself

Your deposit must go into one of three government-approved schemes within 30 days, and the prescribed information — where it is, how to get it back — must reach you in writing inside the same window. The cap is a number of weeks' rent, with a different cap for high rents; read the current caps from gov.uk, not from your agent.

Here is the part almost nobody knows. Since May 2026 a court cannot make a possession order on nearly any ground unless the deposit was protected and that information given; the only real exceptions are the serious antisocial behaviour grounds. So when a notice arrives, check three things:

• whether the deposit is registered. The schemes are the Deposit Protection Service, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and mydeposits; each has a lookup that needs the deposit reference, or your surname and postcode, and will confirm whether a deposit is held when your landlord will not;
• whether the prescribed information reached you inside the 30 days;
• which ground the notice names, and the date it expires.

If it is not protected, the claim goes nowhere until your landlord fixes it — which they can, so this is leverage rather than immunity, but it buys time. And at the end of the tenancy, agreeing a deduction by text to end an argument quickly is the most expensive five minutes of many tenancies.

A second bar of the same shape is arriving. Landlords must register themselves and each property they let on a new government database, and an unregistered landlord faces the same block on possession, with the same antisocial behaviour exception. It is switched on region by region, so check gov.uk for whether it has reached you.

The boiler is not your problem, whatever your contract says

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is implied into almost every short residential tenancy and cannot be contracted out of: the structure, the exterior and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, heating and hot water are the landlord's. A clause making you responsible for the boiler is void. If the home is unfit to live in, damp and mould included, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 lets you sue without anyone's permission.

The duty is triggered by notice, which is where most repair cases quietly die: the complaint was verbal, undated, nothing to prove the landlord knew. Report in writing every time, and photograph the problem with a date on it. Environmental health at your council can also inspect and order works, free of charge.

There is now exactly one lawful way to raise your rent

A section 13 notice, on the prescribed government form, at least two months ahead, once in any twelve months, never in the first twelve months of the tenancy. Nothing else works — not a clause indexing the rent to some formula, not an email. Pay an increase that was never validly served and you have raised your own rent.

You can challenge a proposal at the First-tier Tribunal before the date it starts, and challenging is no longer the gamble it was: the tribunal cannot set a rent above the figure your landlord asked for, the new rent runs from the decision rather than being backdated, and it can be deferred by up to two further months for undue hardship. The test is market rent, not what you can afford, so a proposal at or below market rent will normally be confirmed. A fee applies, with remission if you cannot afford it — apply for remission with the application.

Twenty-four hours in writing, and holding a key is not permission

Your landlord may enter to inspect and to repair, at reasonable hours, on at least 24 hours' written notice — a right to ask properly, not to walk in, so you can decline a time and offer another. Letting themselves in, or repeated unannounced visits, can amount to harassment under the 1977 Act. But refusing all access, for a gas safety check or a real repair, hands your landlord a ground.

Almost none of this applies if you live with your landlord

Everything above assumes an assured tenancy: exclusive possession of your own space, landlord not living there. A lodger sharing a home with a resident landlord is an excluded occupier — no duty to protect the deposit, no court order to end the agreement, reasonable notice and nothing more. The 2025 Act did not touch that divide. Company lets and purpose-built student accommodation are outside the system too, and gov.uk lists the rest.

The mistake that costs the most

Moving out on the date written on a notice. That date is when your landlord may start a claim, not when you must be gone. Leaving voluntarily ends your tenancy, ends every defence you had, and can change how the council assesses whether you made yourself homeless. If the notice is about arrears, the mandatory arrears ground needs you at or above the threshold on the day of the notice and again on the day of the hearing, and the threshold is months of rent rather than pounds. Arrears that exist only because a Universal Credit payment had not yet arrived are discounted in working it out, so take the payment record to the hearing. Paying below the threshold before the hearing defeats the mandatory ground, but most notices also cite the discretionary arrears grounds, where the court weighs whether possession is reasonable — the claim does not disappear, and the hearing still matters. Get advice before it rather than after: Shelter's advice pages and the Act itself are free to read.

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This is general information about how a process works, not advice about your situation. Thresholds, fees and deadlines change — check the official source linked above for the current figures, or ask a professional who can see your circumstances.