Section 21 Has Been Abolished: What Replaced It

England only — Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate regimes

Section 21 did a lot of work for landlords, and most of the questions I get in the Landlord Alliance community are still shaped by it — people asking how long a section 21 takes, or whether they can serve one “just in case”. The honest answer is that the tool is gone and the replacement is a different shape entirely. This page explains what actually happened, what it means if you were mid-process, and what you use instead.

What happened to section 21

The Renters’ Rights Act removed the entire chapter of the Housing Act 1988 that created assured shorthold tenancies. Section 21 lived inside that chapter, so it went with it. This wasn’t an amendment — the provision was repealed outright.

Before 1 May 2026	Now
Section 21: two months, no reason needed	Abolished. No equivalent exists
Accelerated possession — paper only, often no hearing	Not available. Every section 8 claim gets a hearing
Fixed term, then section 21 at the end	No fixed terms. Tenancy continues until lawfully ended
Section 8 as the harder alternative	Section 8 is the only route

If you served a section 21 before 1 May 2026

Schedule 6 of the Act set out transitional rules. They have now run out, but it is worth knowing exactly where you stand, because the answer differs depending on how far you had got.

Your position on 1 May 2026	What the Act allowed	Position today
You had already asked the court to issue the claim form	Notice stays valid until the proceedings conclude. The tenancy stays an AST until then	Still live. Your claim continues as an AST possession claim
Notice served, claim not yet requested	Valid until the earlier of its own expiry or three months from 1 May	Dead. The three-month longstop ended 31 July 2026
No notice served	—	Section 8 only

The point people miss is that the deadline was for requesting issue of the claim form, not for serving the notice or for the notice’s own expiry date. A notice served in April 2026 with six months of life left in it still died on 31 July if you hadn’t started the claim.

One narrow exception: a Breathing Space moratorium can extend those periods, so a small number of pre-commencement notices may still be alive. If that applies to you, take advice on your specific dates rather than assuming.

What you use instead

Section 8, on a ground. The grounds most landlords will actually reach for:

Ground	When it applies	Notice	Type
1A	You intend to sell	4 months	Mandatory
1	You or close family moving in	4 months	Mandatory
8	Three months’ or 13 weeks’ arrears	4 weeks	Mandatory
10 / 11	Some arrears / persistent late payment	4 weeks	Discretionary
12	Breach of a tenancy obligation	2 weeks	Discretionary
14	Antisocial behaviour	None — file immediately	Discretionary

Two things make this meaningfully harder than section 21 was, and they are worth planning around rather than discovering:

Selling now costs you about sixteen months. Ground 1A needs four months’ notice, and afterwards you cannot let or even market the property to let for twelve months from the notice expiry date. On my three-bed in Hastings at £1,500 a month, that ban costs roughly £20,800 once you add council tax on an empty property, insurance and standing charges. Breaching it is a criminal offence with a £40,000 civil penalty as the alternative to prosecution.

Every claim gets a hearing. The accelerated paper route died with section 21. Median time from claim to repossession is currently 27.1 weeks on the latest Ministry of Justice figures, and that is before you add the notice period on the front.

Questions landlords are asking