This article is the fifth in our Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (the RRA 2025) series. It provides an update to our previous article Renters’ Rights Bill: Proposed grounds for possession in a rural context written before the RRA 2025 was enacted.
All Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs) will convert to Assured Periodic Tenancies (APTs) on 1 May 2026 or at the start of the next rent period after the period in which 1 May falls. Many landlords are concerned with the abolition of ASTs, with their no fault, fast track, eviction process and the introduction of new, limited grounds under which they may regain possession. Consequently, it is important that landlords understand the grounds for possession applicable to APTs, and how and when they may be used.
The RRA 2025 introduces a number of new grounds for possession, which are either mandatory or discretionary. Mandatory grounds are those which, if met, must result in a judge awarding possession. With discretionary grounds, a judge will grant possession only if it is reasonable to do so. There are a large number of grounds, and the table found at the end of this article sets out those which are likely to be of particular interest to rural landlords.
Practical steps for landlords
To ensure that certain grounds can be relied on and that vacant possession can be obtained, landlords should be alive to a few key issues:
1. The importance of prior notice
New tenancies
To rely on several of the possession grounds, landlords should have told the tenant before the tenancy was entered into that they may use them to regain possession in the future. This is called giving ‘prior notice’.
Our previous article on practicalities for landlords explains the requirement for landlords to provide new tenants with certain written information, setting out the core terms of the tenancy (known as the ‘Written Statement of Terms’). It is in this written document (which could be the tenancy agreement itself) that landlords may include a statement of their wish to be able to recover possession on one or more of Grounds 1B, 2ZA to 2ZD, 4, 5 to 5H, 6A or 18.
Failure to provide tenants with prior notice of these grounds before a new APT is granted may attract penalties of up to £7,000. Whilst it seems that failing to provide advance notice in the written statement will not prevent a landlord from relying on one of these grounds for possession, landlords should provide notice to tenants if there is any possibility that these grounds may be used.
Existing tenancies
Landlords of existing written tenancies are required to provide the “information sheet” to every tenant named on existing tenancies by 31 May 2026. Interestingly, there does not seem to be anything in the legislation requiring a landlord to serve any prior notice on existing tenants alongside the information sheet.
However, if landlords may wish to rely on any of the prior notice grounds, we would advise that prior notice is served on tenants in a cover letter alongside the PDF information sheet.
Agricultural head-leases
Prior notice is required for grounds 2ZA, 2ZB, 2ZC and 2ZD which relate to a superior lease coming to an end, provided that lease was either an AHA or FBT letting, or for a fixed term of more than 21 years. Landlords of AHA and FBT tenancies which include sub-let cottages should ensure that their agricultural tenants serve prior notice on any residential sub-tenants informing them that they may wish to rely on these grounds in the future to ensure that these grounds are available to them.
We would recommend that:
- agricultural landlords write to existing agricultural tenants, requesting that they provide their residential subtenants with this notice before 31 May; and
- in the future, where permission is given for agricultural tenants to sublet any dwellings, it is a condition of the permission that prior notice must be given to residential sub-tenants in the tenancy agreement.
2. Opt-out notices
Grounds 2ZA to 2ZD, 5A and 5C cannot be used if the tenant is an Assured Agricultural Occupant. It is therefore important that landlords continue to ensure that they avoid creating Assured Agricultural Occupancies by structuring the occupation arrangement as a tenancy (now an APT) not a service occupancy and that they serve an opt out notice (the new Form 9A Notice) before an agricultural worker goes into occupation under an APT. The Form 9A notice cannot be used retrospectively.
3. Employees
- Once the relevant sections of the RRA 2025 come into force on 1 May 2026, terminating an APT will not be as easy as terminating a service occupancy or a former AST and so employer landlords will need to carefully manage how and where they house employees.
- It is worth nothing that ground 5C is only available to employers if they are also the landlord of the property being let to the employee or there is an agreement between the landlord and the employer to house that employee. Further detail around this ground can be found in Part 1 of this series – Renters’ Rights Act 2025: navigating accommodation for rural workers.
In addition to giving the required prior notice, landlords can confirm in any new employment contract and in the APT itself that the property is being rented to that tenant as a consequence of their employment and, if they may want to move the employee to another property, that the tenancy is not meant to last the duration of their employment. If the landlord has served prior notice that they may wish to rely on Ground 5C, then they would be able to rely on this mandatory ground in order to regain possession, even if the employee’s employment has not ended. This prevents employer landlords from needing to rely on discretionary ground 9, if they wish to relocate an employee within their housing portfolio.
4. Deposit
Under the RRA 2025, the courts will not be able to award possession under any ground, except grounds 7A and 14 (anti-social behaviour), unless the landlord has protected the tenant’s deposit and complied with the requirements of the scheme. If landlords do comply late (but before the date of a court hearing for a possession order) they may still get an order for possession but would also likely incur financial penalties for late compliance.
Conclusion
As 1 May 2026 approaches, now is a sensible time to review existing portfolios to ensure that landlords are acting strategically in their housing allocation and that they are, and will remain, compliant with the requirements of the Housing Act 1988 and the changes brought about by the RRA 2025. Landlords with agricultural tenancies and employee tenants (not limited to those employed in agriculture) should take particular care to ensure that tenancies are reviewed.
Grounds for Possession.PDF
For more insights in our series on the RRA 2025 see:
Part 1: Renters’ Rights Act 2025: navigating accommodation for rural workers
Part 2: Renters’ Rights Act 2025: which tenancies are not caught?
Part 3: Renters’ Rights Act 2025: practicalities for landlords of dealing with new and existing tenancies
Part 4: Renters’ Rights Act 2025: a focus on rent review and subtenancies – Michelmores
