Coming changes to Courts and Tribunals: what landlords have to live with

The Renters' Rights Act means extra load on an already creaking service. Will the planned changes alleviate the problems landlords are facing?

By Tom Entwistle, LandlordZONE

Experts have long warned the government that removing section 21 and allowed rent increase appeals would overload an already stretched judicial system.

LandlordZONE has already covered this topic on many occasions. This article aims to look under the hood at the government’s plans in more detail, to assess the effectiveness of the new proposals and their possible impact on landlords.

Not only are the courts and tribunals feeling the strain, but the court bailiffs service is also suffering with understaffing causing blockages in the eviction process. Even with section 21, evictions could stretch to 9 or even 12 months, now it could be even longer. This is not acceptable.

This article covers the position in England. It is intended as general information for landlords and letting professionals and does not constitute legal advice. Landlords facing an active possession claim or tribunal referral should take professional advice.

1,000 Judges

The government now says 1,000 extra judges and tribunal members are needed to handle the fallout from the Renters' Rights Act (RRA). The Senior President of Tribunals is now consulting on how the property tribunal service should be run in the future. 

However, already the government has said it has no plans to introduce an expedited, standalone court possession or accelerated bailiff process, though “HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is working on internal operational improvements to address chronic delays.” 

Behind these announcements is a more useful question for working landlords: what do the official figures actually show about how long possession and rent-challenge cases are taking? How will the promised relief be delivered? 

The relevant sections of the Housing Act 1988 as amended by the RRA, since 1 May 2026, apply to every contested possession and rent appeal in England. Claims must now involve, in every case, a time consuming and often expensive court hearing, with all the attendant delays involved.

These sections mean in practice that instead of a document led process, Section 8, with its wider set of defensible grounds, and the Section 13 rent increase appeals process, can potentially lead to endless delays.

The mechanics of how a Section 8 defence or a Section 13 referral works have been covered in detail on this site before, and I will not repeat them here. This piece looks instead at whether the system is being resourced to cope, and what a landlord going through the courts or a tribunal can realistically expect.

What does the official data show?

The Ministry of Justice's mortgage and landlord possession statistics for April to June 2026 is the first full quarterly release sitting entirely within the post-Section 21 period. It perhaps gives a clearer picture than either the government's reassurances to-date or the rental property sector experts’ warnings. 

Landlord possession claims rose 6 per cent year-on-year to 23,635, with accelerated claims (up 16 per cent) driving most of this increase. Orders for possession held broadly stable compared with the same quarter in 2025. 

Warrants and repossessions fell, by 6 per cent and 3 per cent respectively according to the government’s statistics. On timeliness, the picture is, if anything, slightly better than a year ago. The median time from claim to repossession fell to 27.1 weeks, down from 27.9 weeks in Q2 2025, and the median time from claim to possession order fell marginally to 7.6 weeks.

That is  useful data, but it needs something of a caveat. This quarter in question covers only the first two months of the new regime. The Ministry of Justice’s (MoJs) own statistics record is unclear on whether any of the movement reflects the Act's commencement or an ordinary quarterly variation. 

A single quarter with no rise in delays is encouraging, but not conclusive, and landlords should be wary of these figures pointing to any form of improvement. London continues to account for around a third of all landlord claims and orders nationally, so the timescales nationally presented by the statistics don’t necessarily reflect those in the busiest locations.

A professional’s view

Paul Shamplina of Landlord Action is sceptical about what these government figures and assurances would suggest. Shamplina says:

“Section 21 claims are likely to break records this year, despite only being legal for the first seven months.” He says the latest Ministry of Justice figures showing that accelerated possession claims jumped 16% in the second quarter of the year are only an indication of travel and that figures in the third quarter will “go through the roof”.

“Those figures will be a proper indication even though there will only have been one month of the quarter that you could have issued a Section 21,” he tells LandlordZONE, adding that Landlord Action was inundated with calls last month and even had to turn people away.

“The record for Section 21 possession claims was 2015 when there were more than 35,000. Speaking to solicitors, agents and landlords – particularly those wanting to get out of the sector - I believe this year will surpass those figures.”

What are the government's plans

The 1,000-judges figure, reported on this site earlier, comes from a letter the Courts and Legal Services Minister Sarah Sackman sent to the National Residential Landlords Association. It’s a great headline, but what is the government actually committing to? 

It seems the courts service has already redeployed staff and is recruiting more, with a new digital possession service under development that is said will let landlords and tenants file and track claims online, rather than through paper documents. These often get lost causing endless delays and cancelled hearings.

The government says it is building a parallel digital service for the Residential Property Chamber. Sackman has set out a target for April or May 2027 for full end-to-end digitisation with a first phase due to roll out by the end of 2026. 

Landlords and tenants representing themselves will retain the option to use paper statements even once the system goes live. It will be the courts' internal case management system that moves to digital first. 

To fund all this the government has confirmed up to £50 million for modernising the civil courts and £5 million a year for housing legal aid, alongside its recruitment drive.

The tribunals

The government says the tribunal system is being addressed through a different, more technical route. On 10 August 2026, the Senior President of Tribunals opened a consultation on amending the Practice Direction that governs who can sit on Property Chamber cases. 

The proposal, which closes for responses on 25 September 2026, would make it easier for regional surveyors, as opposed to having regional or deputy regional judges, chair the rent-valuation cases. These are expected to make up the bulk of the tribunal's new workload under the RRA. 

The consultation applies only to the Residential Property Chamber, not the aspects of the FT tribunals work. The case for change is framed around workload and capacity which is expected to be "predominantly valuation".

That’s a task (chartered) surveyors are considered well placed to carry out. The government has also intimated, but perhaps less definitely, that it intends to create a non-judicial body to determine appropriate rents for given areas, with the aim of taking pressure off the tribunals. So far there’s no confirmation from ministers.

How has the rental property Industry reacted?

The NRLA's chief executive, Ben Beadle, has given the recruitment announcement a cautious welcome, with some qualifications. His response to Sackman's letter pressed for answers to two suggestions in her letter: what does "coping" with demand actually mean in practice?  And what is the mechanism for monitoring how the courts and tribunals are actually performing as case volumes build?

Beadle also flagged that landlords still lack detail on the proposed non-judicial rent body. This absence, he says, leaves an open question over how the tribunal avoids becoming overwhelmed as more tenants challenge rent increases under the new rules.

propertymark has also been making a similar argument for some time. It pushed successfully during the Bill's passage through Parliament for a statutory review clause. That would require the government to report on the RRA's impact on court and tribunal capacity, not just on tenancy outcomes. 

It has also proposed the automatic transfer of a case from a county court bailiff to a High Court enforcement officer where enforcement has stalled for three months.  The High Court route is known to be much faster once a possession order has already been granted.

An indication of the government’s position was stated in a written parliamentary answer earlier in the year:

“…there is no national backlog in possession cases at this time, and that the Civil Procedure Rules' four-to-eight-week window for a first hearing is being met.” 

The MoJ's own Q2 figures, discussed above, do not contradict that claim on current numbers but whether it still holds once the full run of contested Section 8 cases works its way through the system over the coming year remains to be seen.

What does all this mean for the small-scale landlord?

For a landlord currently in, or approaching, possession proceedings, the figures above translate into a few practical points rather than a verdict on the reforms as a whole.

First, treat the 27-week median with caution and as a rough guide only.  The realistic current benchmark for claim to repossession is high and will not be affected in the short-term by promises of 1,000 new judges. In fact, if Paul Shamplina’s predictions are correct things will get worse before they get better.  

Second, expect the digital possession service to arrive in phases through the second half of 2026 and into 2027, with paper routes remaining available throughout. 

Third, on the tribunal side, if the SPT's consultation proceeds as proposed, more rent-challenge hearings are likely to be chaired by regional chartered surveyors rather than judges. This means the emphasis on valuations and the importance of assembling solid, evidenced based comparable achieved-rent data. This will matter more than ever, because the person hearing the case is increasingly likely to be a valuation specialist rather than a lawyer. 

For landlords – how to proceed for now

If you have a possession claim situation in the offing, you need to plan and budget financially for a realistic possession timeline of at least 27 weeks but it could be much longer to claim-to-repossession. In the short term. Don’t rely on any promised timescales implied by “1,000 new judges” headlines.

Keep your paperwork for both court and tribunal cases up-to-date and in good order. Digitisation is being phased in through 2026–27. It won’t be switched on overnight, and paper routes will remain available regardless.

If you have a coming rent increase case likely to be challenged and it reaches the First-tier Property Chamber, prioritise a robust set of evidence.. This is composed of comparable-rent data and property details. Changes to panel composition point towards more emphasis on valuation.

25 September 2026 is the deadline if you want to respond to the SPT’s consultation on Property Chamber panel composition.

Keep track of the quarterly MoJ possession statistics directly for the most current, verified picture, rather than relying solely on press coverage of ministerial letters.

A final word

We all know that the courts and tribunal services are creaking at the seams despite the government’s assurances. We are promised improvements which have yet to materialise and will likely take some time to organise. 

In the meantime, landlords who need to use these services should be prepared for delays and budget financially accordingly, perhaps building a reserve fund just in case.

If the government holds good on its promises all well and good, but don’t hold your breath.

[Main image credit: Werner Pfennig]