Section 21 ended on 1 May 2026. If you haven’t served notice or changed a tenancy since then, the practical difference is this: you can no longer ask a tenant to leave without a reason, and every route back to possession now takes longer and needs more paperwork than it used to.
The Renters’ Rights Act was the biggest change to the private rented sector in decades, and most of the coverage around it focused on the politics. This is the practical version: what actually changed, what the new possession grounds mean in Brighton & Hove terms, and what you need to do differently from here.
What actually ended
Section 21 — the “no fault” notice that let a landlord end a tenancy without giving a reason — no longer exists. Every assured shorthold tenancy, including ones that were already running before 1 May, automatically became a periodic tenancy on that date. Fixed terms are gone. There’s no such thing as a new 12-month AST any more; every new tenancy starts periodic from day one and continues indefinitely until either side ends it properly.
You don’t need to reissue or rewrite existing tenancy agreements because of this. What you do need to do is give tenants a copy of the government’s information sheet explaining the changes — the same requirement applies to new tenancies going forward.
How you get possession now
With Section 21 gone, Section 8 is the only route back. That means proving one of the statutory grounds under the Housing Act 1988, using the correct form, and giving the correct notice period for that specific ground. Get the ground or the paperwork wrong and the claim can be thrown out, costing you time and court fees rather than saving them.
The two grounds landlords use most often have both changed:
| Ground | What it’s for | Notice period | Key restriction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground 1A | Landlord wants to sell the property | 4 months | Cannot be used in the tenancy’s first 12 months; property cannot be re-let for 12 months afterwards |
| Ground 1 | Landlord or a family member wants to move in | 4 months | Cannot be used in the tenancy’s first 12 months |
| Ground 8 | Rent arrears | 4 weeks (was 2) | Threshold raised from 2 months’ arrears to 3 months’ |
Ground 1A carries a real penalty for getting it wrong. If you use it to sell and then don’t — or re-let within the 12-month bar — you’re exposed to a civil penalty of up to £40,000. This ground needs to be a genuine decision to sell, documented as one, not a faster way to end a tenancy.
The rent arrears change matters for cashflow. Under the old rules, two months’ unpaid rent got you to Ground 8 with two weeks’ notice. Now it’s three months’ arrears and four weeks’ notice, meaning a tenant who stops paying costs you longer before you can act. If you self-manage, it’s worth tightening how quickly you follow up on a missed payment rather than waiting to see if it resolves itself.
Rent increases are now a formal process
You can still increase rent once every 12 months, but it now has to go through a Section 13 notice, with a minimum of two months’ notice to the tenant, and the increase has to reflect the open market rate — what the property would achieve if newly advertised. Tenants can challenge an increase at tribunal if they think it doesn’t reflect that, and you can’t use a possession ground to retaliate against a tenant who challenges one.
Any tenancy clause that tries to build in automatic rent rises — an annual percentage increase written into the agreement, for instance — no longer has legal effect. The Section 13 route is now the only way to raise rent, however the tenancy is worded.
The other changes worth knowing about
- Rent in advance is capped at one month. Asking for six months upfront to secure a tenancy is no longer allowed.
- Rental bidding is banned. You advertise a rent, and you can’t accept or encourage offers above it.
- Tenants can request a pet, and you must consider it reasonably. You can still say no with good reason, but a blanket “no pets” clause isn’t enforceable on its own.
- Discrimination against tenants on benefits or with children is now explicitly banned. “No DSS” style restrictions, however they’re phrased, are no longer lawful.
- A national landlord database and a mandatory Ombudsman scheme are both coming. Target date is late 2026 — worth watching for, though not yet live at the time of writing.
What to actually do now
- Check every current tenancy. All of them are periodic now, whatever the original agreement said. If you were relying on a fixed term ending soon to get the property back, that route no longer exists on its own.
- Stop issuing fixed-term agreements. Any new tenancy template still offering a 12-month AST needs updating to reflect a periodic-only structure.
- Hand out the government information sheet. Required for new tenancies, and sensible for existing ones too so tenants understand what’s changed.
- Review how you’d actually use Ground 1A or Ground 1 if you needed to. Both need four months’ notice and can’t be used in a tenancy’s first year — if a sale or move-in is even a possibility, that timeline needs to be in your planning now, not when you need it.
- Tighten your arrears process. With the threshold now at three months, catching a missed payment early matters more than it used to.
If any of this sounds like more admin than you want to take on directly, it’s exactly the sort of thing we handle as part of our managed lettings service — correct notices, correct grounds, and tenancy paperwork that’s actually compliant with where the law is now, not where it was in April.
Not sure where your tenancies stand under the new rules?
Send us your current tenancy details and we’ll tell you plainly what’s changed for you and what, if anything, needs doing.
Get a compliance checkFigures and provisions in this article: Renters’ Rights Act 2026, in force from 1 May 2026, summarised from guidance published by the National Residential Landlords Association, Shelter, and legal commentary current as of September 2026. This is general information and not legal advice — please take professional advice before serving any notice or relying on a specific ground for possession.