Renters Rights Bill: Ending a periodic assured tenancy

This guidance is based on the wording of the Bill currently being considered in the House of Lords and may be subject to change. Check back regularly for further updates.

Section 21 notices will be abolished when the Renters' Rights Bill becomes law later this year, with periodic assured tenancies becoming the default tenancy in England.

Landlords will still be able to end a tenancy when they have a genuine need, but they will rely on the grounds-based Section 8 notice procedure instead.

Unlike Section 21 notices, you must state why you need possession when you serve a Section 8 notice, and that reason must be one or more of the established grounds that entitle you to possession. 

Should you need to apply to the court, you must provide evidence of the grounds you have relied upon. For some grounds, the court must grant possession if the ground is evidenced, but for others, the judge should weigh up whether it is reasonable to grant possession.

Many different grounds can be included on a Section 8 notice, including for things like:

• The landlord needing to move into the property
• Serious antisocial behaviour
• The tenant breaching their contract.

However, the existing grounds do not cover all the circumstances where a landlord might need to seek possession. 

To address this, when Section 21 is abolished, several new grounds will be added, including new grounds related to selling the property and managing student houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). However, this is balanced out by changes to existing grounds which mean notices may take longer or allow tenants to build up more arrears than under the current rules.

The guidance on this page sets out these changes to help you prepare, ahead of the Renters' Rights Bill coming into force.

Tenancies this guidance applies to

This page applies to assured tenancies only. This includes any assured shorthold tenancies that convert to assured tenancies after the commencement date.

You will probably have an assured tenancy if all of the following conditions are met.

• You are letting the property to a person or group of people
• They have exclusive occupation over the property or the room they are renting
• It is their main home
• The rent is more than £250 per annum and less than £100,000 per annum
• You, the landlord, are not a resident in the same building

If your tenancy does not meet these conditions, you may have a non-assured tenancy instead. These tenancies will usually be ended by a notice to quit.

As the Bill is not in force yet, you can continue to serve Section 21 notices at the moment. Once the Bill does become law a valid Section 21 or Section 8 notice served beforehand can still be used to apply to the court for a brief period after.

For possession claims that are already in progress

If the court issued your possession claim before the commencement date, it will progress normally.

For Section 21 notices