Shock court ruling puts late-served Section 21s at risk

Section 21's last stand was those notices served in the run-up to the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (RRA) in England. 

The strict rules, the loopholes, and a shock court ruling now put all several late services of Section 21 notices in jeopardy. 

Following the passing of the RRA, landlords were relieved to discover that a relief period until midnight on the 30th of April 2026 was allowed for the serving of a valid Section 21 notice. 

Consequently, thousands of landlords rushed to serve notices before the 1 May 2026 abolition deadline, believing they had secured their path to a successful eviction. However, a Court of Appeal judgment handed down on the very last service day now throws many of those notices’ validity into doubt. 

This article applies primarily to England and is not a full interpretation of the law. Always seek professional advice before making or not making decisions. Use this guide as the starting point for your research, not an endpoint.

What was the beloved Section 21? 

Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 gave landlords in England a simpler mechanism to recover possession of a residential property at the end of an assured shorthold tenancy (AST). The landlord didn’t need to give a reason for requesting eviction (though more often there was a good reason) and without needing to prove that the tenant had done anything wrong. 

It required the use of a prescribed form (Form 6A) available to download free and gave the tenant at least two months' notice. After the notice period the landlord simply applied to the court for a possession order without the need for a court hearing. 

Providing a comprehensive set of criteria were met, a judge would sign off on a possession order based on the documents provided. This was a clean and faster route to possession compared with its counterpart, the Section 8 procedure, now embedded as a mandatory procedure in the RRA. 

Under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, the Assured Shorthold Tenancy and Section 21 is abolished from 1 May 2026 meaning all tenancies are now Assured Tenancies. All existing assured shorthold tenancies automatically convert to periodic assured tenancies. 

From that deadline date, landlords who need possession must use Section 8 and demonstrate through good evidence that they meet one or more of several statutory grounds for possession. For example, rent arrears, property damage, anti-social behaviour, a need to sell, or a wish to move a landlord family member into the property.

The main criteria

In the years prior to the introduction of the RRA the criteria required to be met to serve a Section 21 notice and process a successful eviction were made increasingly onerous and difficult to meet. 

This created a situation where just one mistake or omission, and the defendant (tenant) or their legal representative could easily find a loophole. A slip of the pen or a failure to meet some requirement, would stymie the landlord’s claim. The main criteria were as follows:

The notice must give the prescribed two months’ notice before a court application is made, and the notice must have been served on the tenant correctly as set-out in the tenancy agreement. 

Form 6A must have been used. This prescribed form must have been accurately addressed, the property named correctly and specifying a legally valid possession date. Even minor errors on this form could invalidate the notice. A Section 21 notice could not be served within the first four months of a tenancy and could only expire at or after the end of the fixed term. 

For the notice to be valid, a licence had to be current for properties that required an HMO licence or a licence under a selective licensing scheme. Also, a notice served in retaliation for a complaint about the conditions in the rental property may not be valid.

Under the Deregulation Act 2015, a Section 21 notice was invalid if (1) The tenant had submitted a written complaint about the condition of the property, to which the landlord either failed to respond or responded inadequately within 14 days, or (2) the tenant subsequently complained to the local council and was issued a relevant Improvement Notice or Notice of Emergency Remedial Action.

When a landlord took a tenancy deposit, they must have protected it in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of receipt. What’s more they had to serve prescribed information on the tenant about protection and must have served this within the same time frame. 

If this had not been done the notice would be invalid unless the deposit was returned in full before serving the notice. This in itself led to many disputes as tenants sometimes refused to take the deposit back. 

A valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) had to be provided to the tenant before the tenancy began, easily overlooked. This often caught out landlords who purchased a property with a sitting tenant and never obtained or served an EPC. It also fooled landlords who had provided an EPC for an initial tenancy, but who omitted to serve one for subsequent tenancies. 

The government's official guide to renting in England must have been provided at the start of the tenancy. It must also have been the current version at that time. Providing a more recent edition later may not in law cure the failure. Landlords failing to demonstrate service of the correct version (available free online) risk the judge claiming the Section 21 notice is defective.

When the property has a gas supply, the tenant must have been given a valid Gas Safety Certificate (GSC) before first moving in. This is the subject of the Muca v El Amrani ruling which makes this a most legally significant condition. 

Notice is only good if it meets ALL the requirements

A Section 21 notice was only valid if the landlord or agent had complied with all the criteria, and at least one must be met before the start of the tenancy. 

The opportunities for error are manifold. A landlord letting the same property to the same tenant for six years may find they had failed to meet all the criteria and unable to serve a valid Section 21 notice. Now that the Renters' Rights Act is in force, there is no opportunity to remedy the situation. 

The deadline that felt like a lifeline

In the months running up to the 1 May 2026 deadline, letting agents, solicitors and property management firms reported a surge in requests from landlords wishing to serve Section 21 notices. 

Many landlords were nervous about the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and its abolition of a relatively straightforward route to possession, though as we shall see, this was by no means a certainty. Nevertheless, landlords saw serving a notice before the cut-off date as preserving their options.

Notices served on or before 30 April 2026 can still be pursued through the courts. That’s providing the proceedings are issued by 31 July 2026. If that date is missed, the notice will expire, never to be used again – the Section 21 route is lost entirely.

The intermediate problem

The Section 21 notice can only be as good as its compliance with all the rules and is free from errors. Judges place strict conditions on these notices and will throw out claims with defective notices and other criteria. It is likely there will be a significant number of the notices served, and claims submitted in that pre-deadline rush, that are invalid.

Crucially, on 30 April 2026, the very last day on which Section 21 notices could lawfully be served, the Court of Appeal handed down two important judgments. These judgments combined two similar cases - Muca v El Amrani and Harker v Hubert [2026] both of which were thrown out because of the non-validity of their claims. The rulings put in doubt many other claims.

What went wrong?

Despite the original conception of the Section 21 process as a simple document based, no-questions-asked possession procedure, the demanding compliance framework and the Deregulation Act 2015 introduced a series of conditions that landlords must satisfy.

The ruling in Muca v El Amrani (2026)

Before this judgment, the legal position on gas safety certificates and Section 21 claims was that late failure to serve a GSC before the tenancy commenced could be remedied by late service. An earlier Court of Appeal decision in Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield 2020 held that late service of a GSC could cure a failure to provide it at the outset, providing the certificate was served before the Section 21 notice. The issue seemed settled.

But the latest Court of Appeal heard the two joined appeals. In Muca v El Amrani, the landlord had granted an assured shorthold tenancy of a property and had not served a GSC before occupation. Further fixed term and periodic tenancies were entered into. 

The county court initially struck out the possession claim. However, on a first appeal, the circuit judge allowed the landlord's appeal and made out a possession order on the basis that the obligation had not applied at the time of the original tenancy. The tenant then brought a further appeal to the Court of Appeal which was successful.

Harker v Hubert (2026)

In this case, Harker v Hubert, the tenants had been granted an assured shorthold tenancy (AST) by the trustees of a trust in November 2007. A GSC had been provided but had been lost. Subsequent annual certificates were issued right through to 2023. A Section 21 notice was served in October 2023. The Central London County Court found in favour of the landlords on the basis that the later certificates had been provided, but the tenants appealed.

The Court of Appeal prescribed requirement under the 2015 Regulations, and it looked at regulation 36(6) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, an obligation to provide the pre-occupation certificate under paragraph (b), and the obligation to provide subsequent annual certificates under paragraph (a). 

Both requirements must be satisfied, and it is not sufficient to have complied with only the ongoing obligation to re-serve, the court found. Failure to provide the GSC before the tenant first went into occupation is an “irremediable breach” it said. It cannot be remedied by late service, leaving the landlord unable to ever serve a valid Section 21 notice.

Lady Justice Falk has noted that the pre-occupation GSC requirement appears to be the only prescribed requirement for Section 21 that is “wholly irremediable”. The tenant's appeal in Muca v El Amrani was allowed. The landlords' appeal in Harker v Hubert was dismissed.

Why these rulings matter

The timing of this ruling is particularly cruel for some landlords. Coming on the last day landlords could serve Section 21 notices, its effects, nevertheless, reach back to every notice already served. 

All ongoing Section 21 claims, whenever the notice was served, are potentially invalid if the tenant was not provided with a valid GSC before first occupying the property or indeed if they fail on any of the other requirements. There is now no remedy available as the deadline has passed for serving another notice. 

Several landlord types are particularly exposed. Those with long running tenancies are at greatest risk because the paperwork from the start of the letting may be incomplete or lost. Without documentary evidence the claim is stymied.

Landlords who purchased a property with tenants already in occupation also often face difficulties. They may have no knowledge of or access to records predating their ownership. The obligation to provide a pre-occupation GSC, for example, goes with the tenancy, not with the individual landlord. The latest judgment now confirms this applies to all post-October 2015 assured shorthold tenancies, even if the original letting pre-dated the introduction of the prescribed requirements.

Section 8

The fall-back position for landlords in these circumstances is to use Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, as significantly amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. This process operates on a very different basis. The landlord must identify a statutory ground for possession, serve a Section 8 notice specifying that ground, and then provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate to the court's satisfaction that the ground is proven. 

What are the lessons to be learned from this?

A landlord who has served a Section 21 notice recently should check their paperwork to make sure they meet all the criteria including the service of a GSC before the tenancy starts. Otherwise, there’s no point in pursuing the possession claim any further.

There is a lesson here for all landlords operating under the new RRA regime. Gas safety records, deposit protection certificates, Energy Performance Certificates and the correct edition of the How to Rent guide are not simply inconveniences to be taken lightly, they are crucial in the event a possession claim becomes necessary.

The Renters' Rights Act does not mean this documentary compliance is reduced. If anything, it may have increased as documentary evidence becomes ever more important. Under Section 8 where possession evidence must be presented to a judge in court, the compliance culture matters more than ever.