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Want to sell your rental property under the Renters' Rights Act? Learn how Ground 1A works, the 12-month re-let restriction, and how to avoid £40k penalties.
Written by
Ryan Green
PUBLISHED ON
April 29, 2026
UPDATED ON
April 29, 2026
READ TIME
0 min
Selling a rental property used to be straightforward. Serve a Section 21 notice, get the tenant to legally move out (recover vacant possession), list the property, and sell.
From 1 May 2026, that route will no longer be an option.
Under the Renters' Rights Act, Section 21 has been abolished. If you want to recover vacant possession to sell, you now need a specific legal ground - and you need to follow it carefully. The ground is called Ground 1A, and it comes with conditions, evidence requirements, and a 12-month re-let restriction backed by penalties of up to £40,000.
This guide walks through the two routes to selling a tenanted property post-RRA, how Ground 1A actually works, what evidence you need, and the practical traps that could cost you tens of thousands of pounds.
Once the Act is in force, there are exactly two ways to sell a property that has a tenant in it.
The simplest route. No notice required, no possession proceedings, no waiting periods. You list the property as a tenanted investment, the buyer takes on the existing tenancy, and the sale completes. The tenant doesn't move. The catch: your buyer pool shrinks to investor-purchasers only, and tenanted properties typically sell at a 5-15% discount to vacant possession.
Opens the property to the full owner-occupier market, but creates compliance risk. You serve notice, wait at least four months, recover possession through the courts if needed, then market the property - but you're locked out of re-letting for a year if the sale falls through.
Which makes sense depends on the property, the buyer pool in your area, and your appetite for risk. For mid-market properties in areas with strong owner-occupier demand, Ground 1A is often worth the friction. For properties that mostly appeal to investors anyway (HMOs, ex-local-authority flats, low-yield rental zones), selling with the tenant in situ usually nets a similar return with much less hassle.
For more on the buyer's perspective, see our guide to buying a property with a tenant in situ.
Ground 1A is one of the new mandatory possession grounds introduced by the Renters' Rights Act. It allows a landlord to recover possession of a rental property where they intend to sell it (or, in some cases, transfer it with vacant possession to certain family members).
Key features:
The 12-month minimum-tenancy rule is worth thinking about. It means a landlord cannot let a property to a new tenant in, say, June 2026, then change their mind and serve a Ground 1A notice in October. The earliest valid Ground 1A notice on that tenancy is June 2027.
This is where most landlords will run into trouble — and where local authorities are most likely to look closely.
The court takes a practical view of "intent to sell". You don't need a buyer lined up, and you don't need the property already on the market. But you do need to be able to evidence that you genuinely intend to market the property.
Strong evidence of intent:
Weak evidence (likely insufficient):
This is the heart of Ground 1A.
After serving a Ground 1A notice, you cannot re-let the property — or market it for re-let — for 12 months from the date the notice was served.
The 12 months run from the notice date, not from the date you actually recover possession. A notice served on 1 June 2026 creates a re-let bar that expires on 1 June 2027, regardless of when the tenant actually moves out.
What you are not allowed to do during the 12 months:
Limited exceptions:
This is the trap, and it's the question that came up directly in our recent UK landlord webinar -
Denise asked: "..so if my property doesn't sell, you can't relet for 12 months?"
The short answer is yes. If you use Ground 1A to recover possession because you intend to sell, but the sale later falls through, you cannot simply put the property back on the rental market. The Renters' Rights Act restricts landlords from marketing or re-letting the property for 12 months after using the selling ground. In practice, this could leave you with a costly empty period if the buyer pulls out, the chain collapses, or the market turns.
That means you may need to keep the property empty while still covering mortgage interest, council tax, insurance and other costs, or continue trying to sell to another buyer.
This creates a real risk for landlords:
On one hand, this rule is designed to prevent misuse of the ground - for example, landlords "pretending to sell" just to remove tenants. But in practice, it also means genuine landlords can be penalised if a sale falls through.
This is why Ground 1A should not be used speculatively. Landlords should be confident they can and will sell their property.
The key point is that Ground 1A compliance is mostly enforced after the fact, not checked upfront when you list or re-market.
Estate agents are not regulators - there is no central system (yet) that automatically blocks a re-let after a Ground 1A notice. Most agents will not routinely check whether Ground 1A was used. Some risk-aware agents may ask for context or add disclaimers to protect themselves.
There is typically no upfront check. You are still exposed if the re-let is later identified through:
Misusing Ground 1A - particularly by re-letting within the 12-month restriction is one of the most heavily penalised offences in the Act.
Civil penalties:
Other consequences:
Local authorities are expected to take a particularly hard line on Ground 1A misuse because it directly undermines the central purpose of the Act - replacing Section 21 with grounds that landlords can't easily abuse.
A few transition scenarios are worth covering:
These convert to assured periodic tenancies on 1 May 2026. Ground 1A becomes available, but the 12-month minimum-tenancy rule still applies. If the tenancy was signed in November 2025, Ground 1A can't be used until November 2026 - even though the tenancy will have technically converted to periodic on 1 May.
These remain enforceable, but there's a hard deadline: court proceedings must be issued by 31 July 2026 at the latest. If you've served a Section 21 with the intention of selling, the existing notice is still your fastest route - but you must move quickly. See our guide to transitioning existing Section 21 notices.
Ground 1A is the only legal route to recover possession for sale. The 12-month minimum-tenancy rule applies from the start.
If you're selling with vacant possession that you've already recovered (or with a tenant in situ), nothing about the Act affects the conveyancing or sale process itself. Only future possession claims are affected.
If you've decided Ground 1A is the right route, here's the sequence:
1. Confirm tenancy is past the 12-month minimum mark. Check your tenancy start date. The earliest you can serve a valid Ground 1A notice is the day the tenancy hits 12 months.
2. Document your intent to sell. Before doing anything else, instruct an estate agent in writing to get a valuation, or list the property. Capture the paper trail.
3. Serve the Section 8 notice citing Ground 1A. This is the formal possession notice. Use the prescribed form. The minimum notice period is four months. Serve every adult occupant named on the tenancy.
4. Track the 12-month re-let countdown from the notice date. Diarise the expiry date. If the sale doesn't go through, this is the date the re-let restriction lifts.
5. Progress the sale in parallel. You don't need to wait for possession to start the marketing and sale process. Many landlords list the property with the existing tenancy in mind and time the sale completion to coincide with possession recovery.
6. If the tenant doesn't leave at the end of the notice period, apply to the court for possession. Provided you've followed the procedure correctly, the court must grant possession.
7. If the sale falls through, hold the property empty until the 12-month restriction expires. Do not be tempted to re-let to bridge the gap. The penalty far outweighs the rental income.
Selling under Ground 1A is fundamentally a documentation challenge. You need to evidence intent to sell, track notice dates, monitor the 12-month restriction, and maintain a paper trail that holds up to local authority scrutiny.
Landlord Studio gives you a single place to store all your evidence.
For landlords managing a portfolio exit, that single audit trail is the difference between a clean exit and a costly enforcement action.
This article expands on questions that came up in our recent UK landlord webinar with Logan Ransley on the Renters' Rights Act Phase 1 changes. To watch the full replay - covering the end of Section 21, fixed-term tenancies, rent in advance bans, pets, and anti-discrimination rules - head to our UK webinars page.
Yes, using Ground 1A - but only after the tenancy has been in place for at least 12 months, with at least four months' notice, and with evidence that you genuinely intend to sell. The old Section 21 route is no longer available from 1 May 2026.
At a minimum, four months' notice service to the date the tenant must leave. If the tenant doesn't leave voluntarily and you need to involve the court, add another 2-4 months for the court process. Realistic timeline: 6-9 months from notice to vacant possession.
The strongest evidence is listing your property on the market - listed with an estate agent, advertised on portals, or under contract for sale. Valuation reports, written estate agent instructions, and conveyancer correspondence also help. A vague intention to "consider selling" won't be enough.
You cannot re-let the property until 12 months have passed from the date you served the Ground 1A notice. You can either hold the property empty until the restriction lifts, or attempt to sell to a different buyer. Re-letting within the 12 months risks a penalty of up to £40,000.
Enforcement is typically tenant-led (a former tenant complains or brings a claim after spotting the property re-let) and local-authority-led (housing enforcement teams can investigate and issue civil penalties). In practice, breaches are more likely to surface when a former tenant reports it, when a council investigates a complaint, or when the re-let leaves a paper trail (agent listings, adverts, deposit schemes). There is usually no automatic upfront check that prevents a re-let, especially if you self-manage, so the risk is often identified after the fact.
The rules around family occupation are narrow and case-specific. Some genuine family-occupation scenarios may be permitted, but a "family let" arranged to circumvent the restriction will likely be treated as a breach. Take legal advice if this is your intention.
In most cases, yes. The restriction is on re-letting the property, and short-term or holiday lets generally count. Some serviced accommodation arrangements may technically fall outside the rules, but local authorities are expected to take a broad view. Don't rely on the gap.
No. Ground 1A cannot be used during the first 12 months of any tenancy. This is a hard rule with no exceptions. If you let a property in June 2026, the earliest you can serve a Ground 1A notice is June 2027.
Selling to your current tenant doesn't require Ground 1A at all. The tenancy can simply end by surrender on the day the sale completes. Many landlords find this is the simplest exit route, especially for tenants who've been considering buying anyway.
Ground 1A is unlikely to work cleanly in this scenario. Disagreements between joint owners about sale typically need to be resolved through partition proceedings or by one party buying out the other before a possession claim can be reliably pursued. Take legal advice.
No. The restriction applies once a Ground 1A notice has been served, regardless of how the tenant subsequently leaves. Voluntary surrender after notice doesn't lift the restriction.
The information in this article is general guidance and should not be relied on as legal advice. Ground 1A claims are fact-specific, and the post-Renters' Rights Act enforcement landscape continues to develop. If you're considering selling a tenanted property under Ground 1A, take advice from a qualified housing solicitor before serving notice.
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