Section 21 After 31 July 2026: Your Notice Can No Longer Be Used

If you are holding a Section 21 notice you served before 1 May 2026 and you have not yet issued a claim, it is no longer any use to you. The transitional window closed on 31 July 2026. Government guidance now states the position in the past tense: "You can no longer apply for a possession order using a section 8 or section 21 notice which you gave to your tenant before 1 May 2026. 31 July 2026 was the last date on which you could make an application."

This page explains exactly what expired, what it means for a notice already in your hands, and what the route to possession is now. It is written for the landlord who has just discovered this, which — given how quietly the deadline passed — is most people reading it.

What the deadline actually was

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 abolished Section 21 for private lettings from 1 May 2026, but it did not simply void the notices already in circulation. It gave them a longstop.

For a Section 21 notice given before 1 May 2026, government guidance states you had to use it to start court proceedings by whichever date came first: the time left on the notice, or 31 July 2026. The guidance adds a second limb worth reading carefully — if the earliest date on which possession proceedings could have begun under your notice was on or after 1 August 2026, you could never use that notice to apply to court at all. A notice served in, say, late April 2026 with a two-month expiry running to the end of June had a window. A notice with a longer runway did not.

For a Section 8 notice given before 1 May 2026, the same longstop applied alongside the ordinary rule: proceedings had to be started by whichever came first, twelve months after the notice was given or 31 July 2026.

Both limbs have now expired. The practical effect is that the date on your notice no longer matters. What matters is whether a claim was issued.

Where that leaves you

There are three positions, and it is worth being honest about which one you are in.

You issued a claim before 31 July 2026. The deadline governed when proceedings could be started. A claim properly issued in time continues on its own terms and is not retrospectively invalidated. If it later falls away — struck out, discontinued, settled and then breached — you cannot resurrect the old notice as the foundation for a fresh claim.

You have a notice but never issued. The notice is spent. There is no application, extension or transitional relief available for it, and no version of the accelerated procedure that will take it. You start again.

Your tenant left on the strength of the notice. Nothing to do, but be careful about what happens next if you used a possession ground you have not actually acted on — the restrictions described below can bite even where the tenant went voluntarily.

The route to possession now

Possession for a private assured periodic tenancy runs through Section 8 and a statutory ground. There is no no-fault route. In practice that means three changes to how you plan a possession.

You need a ground that fits the facts, and evidence for it. Section 8 grounds divide into mandatory grounds, where the court must order possession if the ground is proved, and discretionary grounds, where it weighs the circumstances. Choosing the ground is the substantive decision — see Section 8 grounds for possession for the full set, or go straight to the common ones: serious rent arrears under Ground 8, selling the property under Ground 1A, or moving in yourself or a close family member under Ground 1.

You serve on Form 3A, not Form 6A. Form 6A — the Section 21 notice — is now available only for social housing lettings. The private-rented Section 8 notice is Form 3A, and it must specify the ground or grounds relied on. Government guidance lists the current assured tenancy forms in full.

The notice periods are longer than landlords expect. The moving-in and selling grounds each require four months' notice, and the notice cannot expire before the tenancy has run twelve months. You can serve within that first year — it simply cannot take effect inside it. Rent-arrears grounds run on shorter periods. Plan backwards from when you actually need the property.

The claim runs on the standard track. With no Section 21, the accelerated paperwork route on Form N5B has nothing to accelerate — see what replaced Form N5B. A Section 8 claim uses Form N5 with Form N119 particulars, because the court has to be satisfied on evidence that the ground is made out.

Two traps in the transition

Do not serve a notice you are not entitled to serve. With the old route gone, there is a temptation to send something that looks official and see what happens. Serving a purported possession notice, or trying to end a tenancy verbally, are breaches for which a local authority can impose a financial penalty of up to £7,000. Using a possession ground when you know a court would not order possession on it is treated more seriously still — an offence with a penalty of up to £40,000 as an alternative to prosecution.

Do not pick the selling or moving-in ground as a substitute for Section 21. Grounds 1 and 1A are not a relabelled no-fault route. They require a genuine intention, and they carry a twelve-month bar on re-letting or re-marketing the property afterwards. Breaching that bar is an offence attracting a penalty of up to £40,000. If your real reason for wanting possession is something else, using these grounds as cover is the single most expensive mistake available in this area — see the re-letting restricted period before you commit.

If the facts are disputed

Rent arrears that the tenant disputes, anti-social behaviour, a tenancy whose history is unclear, a tenant who has raised disrepair or a deposit issue in response to your notice — these are the situations where the choice of ground and the evidence behind it decide the outcome, and where a wrong first move costs months. A possession claim that fails on the ground has to start over from a fresh notice.

This is a genuine case for advice from a practising solicitor rather than a form. It is fact-specific, it is high-stakes, and the questions that matter are ones a template cannot ask you. This site is not a law firm and does not operate a telephone helpline. The Law Society’s Find a Solicitor service is the official starting point.

While you are re-papering

Two housekeeping points that often surface at the same moment as a possession problem, because both were easy to miss in the changeover:

• Existing tenants had to be given the government Information Sheet by 31 May 2026, with a penalty of up to £7,000 for not doing so. If that was overlooked, serve it now.
• New tenancies need a written statement of terms before the tenancy is entered into, and the grounds you may later want to rely on have to be flagged in it for certain grounds. See written statement of terms and, for the underlying document, the assured periodic tenancy agreement.

Related guides

• Section 8 grounds for possession: every ground explained
• The re-letting restricted period after Grounds 1 and 1A
• How to serve a Section 8 notice
• What replaced Form N5B?
• Assured periodic tenancy agreement