Last call for Section 21 Notices?

The Renters Right Bill, which represents the biggest reform of the law relating to private residential tenancies in the last 40 years, continues to make its way through Parliament.  The present position, in early October 2025, is that the House of Commons have rejected proposed amendments made by the House of Lords and have bounced the Bill back to the Upper House for further consideration.

The final shape of the Bill is therefore now emerging and what remains clear is that Section 21 “no fault evictions” will soon be a thing of the past.

This country’s flexible and dynamic private rented sector has, for the past four decades, been based upon a fundamental premise; at the end of the initial fixed contractual term a Landlord can end a tenancy without having to give a reason by serving a 2-month Notice.

From the date of the commencement of the new law, that option will no longer be available.

Instead, Landlords will need to rely upon a reason for seeking possession and the notice periods will be longer.  The most obvious reasons that Landlords are likely to rely on are the sale of the property, the need to occupy the property themselves, anti-social behaviour of the Tenant or instances of rent arrears.

The other major change is that there will be no more Assured Shorthold Tenancies. Rather, all tenancies will be periodic assured tenancies with no expiry date and will only be capable of being brought to an end by a Landlord when one of the reasons prescribed by law applies.

Whilst this is good news for Tenants who will benefit from greater security there have been unintended consequences for the rented market.  Most obviously, these reforms are the latest legislative measure that make being a Landlord, for all but the most committed, unattractive.  Landlords have been exiting the market, the number of properties available for rent has fallen and rents have risen.  We expect that, despite the predictability of these outcomes, they are not what successive Governments actually wanted to achieve.

Nevertheless, the purpose of this briefing is to explain that time is running out for the service of Section 21 Notices and therefore if you are a Landlord who might wish to recover possession of a property without having to demonstrate grounds for doing so, consideration should be given to serving a Section 21 Notice before the end of this year.

For case specific advice, please feel able to contact our Property Litigation Team, headed up by Will Oakes at [email protected].