Section 21 Notice

Section 21 had prerequisites: the tenant's deposit protected within 30 days; the prescribed information about the deposit scheme given to the tenant; the latest How to Rent guide supplied; a current gas safety certificate supplied; the Energy Performance Certificate supplied; and the property licensed where HMO or selective licensing applied. Any defect made the notice invalid and challengeable in court. Tenants could also raise the retaliatory eviction defence under section 33 of the Deregulation Act 2015. Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026: a notice served on or after that date is invalid, and a notice served before it can no longer be relied on because possession proceedings had to be issued by 31 July 2026. Possession now requires a Section 8 ground.

What it means in practice today. If you are a tenant in England and your landlord hands you a Section 21 notice now, it has no legal effect. It cannot end your tenancy, and it cannot be used to obtain a possession order. You do not have to leave, and leaving because you were told to may make it harder to get help from the council later, since giving up accommodation you were entitled to occupy can be treated as making yourself homeless. If you are a landlord, serving one exposes you to a wasted court fee and, if you follow through by changing the locks, to a criminal offence.

A worked example. Aisha rents a flat in Leeds. In June 2026 her landlord emails a completed Form 6A and tells her she has two months to go. Because Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026, the notice is invalid. Aisha replies in writing that she is not leaving, keeps paying rent, and reports the position to the council's tenancy relations officer. If the landlord genuinely wants the property back, he must serve a Section 8 notice citing a statutory ground and prove it in court.

Common pitfalls and misconceptions. The biggest is believing that a notice, of any kind, ends a tenancy by itself — it never did. Only a court order and, ultimately, county court bailiffs can lawfully remove a tenant. The second is the belief that pre-abolition notices somehow live on: they do not, because the transitional window for issuing proceedings closed on 31 July 2026. The third is that landlords sometimes now attempt to dress up a no-fault eviction as a Section 8 ground, for example claiming an intention to sell or to move in, without meeting the notice period or evidence that ground requires.

How it relates to other terms. Section 21 belonged to the assured shorthold tenancy regime, which the Renters' Rights Act 2025 also swept away. Its replacement is the ground-based Section 8 notice. The old prerequisites still matter in their own right: deposit protection penalties, EPC duties, and licensing obligations all survive independently, and breaching them can support a Rent Repayment Order.

What to do next. Read our Section 21 guide for the historic position and what replaced it, then eviction notices to check whether anything you have been served is valid. Our guide to the Renters' Rights Act 2025 explains the possession grounds that apply now.