Section 8 Ground 1 and 1A 2026: Moving In or Selling

You want the property back, either so you or close family can live in it, or so you can sell it. Section 21 is gone: since 1 May 2026 the only route to possession in England is Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, and the two grounds that fit your plan are Ground 1 (you or close family moving in) and the new Ground 1A (selling). This guide shows what each ground needs, and how to avoid the traps that lose the case or cost up to £40,000 afterwards.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 rebuilt both grounds so ordinary landlords can genuinely use them, but it also built in serious traps for anyone who gets the procedure wrong.

The trap that catches the most people: the 12-month re-letting ban with a civil penalty of up to £40,000 for breach. Say you serve on Ground 1 or 1A, get possession, then change your mind and put the property back on the rental market inside the restricted period. The council can fine you up to £40,000, and the tenant can seek a Rent Repayment Order (an order to repay rent) covering up to two years of rent.

Below: what each ground requires, the notice periods, the prior-notice question, what evidence courts actually want, and the mistakes that either destroy the notice at hearing or trigger enforcement after possession.

Not legal advice. For a specific case, instruct a housing solicitor. Ground 1 and 1A hearings are contested, and the tenant may have legal aid while you almost certainly will not.

Ground 1: landlord (or close family) wants to move in

Type: Mandatory. Notice period: 4 months. Bar: Cannot be used in the first 12 months of the tenancy.

Ground 1 applies where the landlord, or someone on a set family list, wants to occupy the property as their only or principal home. Under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 the family list is:

• The landlord themselves
• The landlord’s spouse or civil partner, or a person the landlord lives with as if married or in a civil partnership
• The landlord’s parent, grandparent, sibling, child or grandchild
• The children and grandchildren of the landlord’s spouse or civil partner (i.e. step-children and step-grandchildren)
• Half-blood relations count on the same footing as full-blood.

The list does not include cousins, nieces or nephews. If the intended occupier is outside the list, Ground 1 is not available. Depending on the plan, Ground 1A (selling the property) may be the alternative.

This is a substantially wider family than the pre-2026 rule (which required prior written notice at tenancy start and covered only landlord and spouse). The wider list is one of the RRA 2025’s biggest gifts to individual landlords: a son coming out of university, a parent needing to downsize and a sibling relocating for work all now qualify.

From £7.99 a month, on paid plans, LetCompliance drafts Form 3A for Ground 1 or Ground 1A with the current wording and the tenant details from the tenancy record, keeps the date, method and evidence of service, and reminds you that the home cannot be re-let or marketed for 12 months from the date in your notice. Get started

Ground 1: what you actually have to prove

At hearing, the court will ask you to demonstrate three things:

1. 1Genuine intention to occupy. Not "we might use it in a year", but a settled plan. Signed statements, sale of the intended occupier’s current property, school applications for children, a change-of-address paper trail: the more concrete the evidence, the harder it is to defeat.
2. 2The occupier fits the family definition. For a spouse, marriage certificate. For a parent/child, birth certificate. For a sibling, the parents’ birth certificates linking you. Simple documents, but bring them.
3. 3The notice is procedurally correct. Form 3A (the current private-sector form), 4 months, correctly served, addressed to every joint tenant, describing Ground 1 in the required wording.

The tenant’s two main defences are (a) bad faith: arguing you don’t really intend to move in, and (b) procedural: arguing the form is wrong, the notice period was short, or the occupier doesn’t fit the definition. Bad-faith cases usually turn on cross-examination of the intended occupier, so the person named in the notice should be prepared to give evidence at hearing, not just be a name on the form.

Ground 1: the prior-notice question

Pre-2026 Ground 1 required the landlord to have served prior written notice at the start of the tenancy that possession might be sought on Ground 1. That requirement was removed by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025: you no longer need to have flagged Ground 1 at the outset.

The other duties still apply, but only one of them can stop the claim. If you took a deposit and it is not protected, or the prescribed information has not been given, the court cannot make an order on Ground 1 or 1A (Housing Act 2004, s.215). Doing both, even after the 30 days, lifts the bar, and so does returning the deposit; being late still leaves the tenant's claim for one to three times the deposit. Gas safety, the EPC, the written statement of terms and Right to Rent are still the law, with their own penalties, but they are not bars to possession.

Ground 1A (new): landlord wants to sell

Type: Mandatory. Notice period: 4 months. Bar: Cannot be used in the first 12 months of the tenancy.

Ground 1A is entirely new. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 created it to fill the role Section 21 used to play for landlords legitimately leaving the market. Before RRA there was no mandatory possession ground on "I want to sell". Landlords who needed to sell used Section 21. With Section 21 gone, government accepted that landlords must have a route to sell with vacant possession, so Ground 1A was inserted.

The ground applies where the landlord intends to sell the property (or to grant a long lease of it, the option for leaseholder landlords selling their reversion). The intention must be genuine and settled.

What "intends to sell" means in practice (based on Explanatory Notes and early housing bar guidance):

• Marketing instructions in place with an estate agent, or
• A sale agreement signed subject to vacant possession, or
• A documented plan to sell within a reasonable period of the possession date

You do not have to have exchanged contracts before serving notice. You do have to be able to show a genuine settled intention to sell.

The £40,000 trap: the 12-month re-letting ban

This is the part most landlords miss.

Once possession is granted under Ground 1 or Ground 1A, the property cannot be re-let or marketed for letting until 12 months after the date given in your notice (the ban starts when you serve the notice). The bar applies whether you:

• Try to grant a new tenancy to a different tenant
• Advertise the property to let (even without a signed tenancy)
• Grant a licence to occupy
• Enter into a company let

Breaking the ban is a criminal offence (Housing Act 1988, s.16J, added by the RRA 2025). What you face:

• Prosecution, or instead a financial penalty of up to £40,000 imposed by the local housing authority
• A Rent Repayment Order in favour of the evicted tenant, covering up to 24 months of the rent that was paid (the RRA 2025 doubled the RRO window from 12 months)

The tenant does not have to move back in for the RRO to bite. They only have to show they were evicted under Ground 1/1A and the property was re-let (or marketed) inside the 12-month window.

What is allowed inside the 12-month window:

• Selling the property (that is the point of Ground 1A)
• Selling with tenants in occupation to a buyer who intends to continue letting
• Living in the property yourself or a qualifying family member (Ground 1)
• Leaving it empty, provided you can pay any council tax on an empty second home

What is not allowed:

• Re-letting to the same or a different tenant
• Short-term letting (Airbnb, holiday lets)
• Marketing to let, even without a completed tenancy

Notice period and form

Both Ground 1 and Ground 1A require 4 months’ notice. That is a substantial change from the pre-2026 regime (Ground 1 was 2 months). It reflects Parliament’s intention that mandatory grounds affecting tenants’ homes should give real notice to find alternative housing.

The notice must be on Form 3A: the new private-rented-sector Section 8 form introduced for the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 regime from 1 May 2026, replacing the old Form 3 used since 2015. Form 3A includes the specific wording required for each ground; using an outdated form is a common ground for the tenant to defeat the notice at hearing.

Serving the notice: personal service, or first-class post with a certificate of posting, or a delivery method contractually agreed in the tenancy. On a paid LetCompliance plan, the Section 8 notice builder drafts Form 3A with the current wording and records the exact date, method and evidence of service, so you have proof of service on file if the tenant disputes it.

Deadline for starting court proceedings: within 12 months of the date the notice was served (Housing Act 1988, s.8(3)(c)). With 4 months’ notice, that leaves about 8 months after the notice expires. Let it lapse and you must serve fresh notice, restarting the 4-month clock.

Common mistakes that lose the case

1. Getting the 12-month bar wrong.

Ground 1 and 1A cannot be used in the first 12 months of the tenancy, but the test is the date in your notice, not the day you serve it: the tenancy must have begun at least a year before the date the notice gives for starting proceedings. With 4 months’ notice, that means you can serve from about month 8. Give a date inside the first year and the ground is not available. Under an APT (all tenancies from 1 May 2026), the 12-month clock runs from the first day of the tenancy, not from the first rent payment or from move-in.

2. Using an outdated form.

The pre-2026 Form 3 used the pre-RRA wording for Ground 1 and had no Ground 1A. It will be rejected at hearing. Use the current Form 3A.

3. Serving for a "possible" reason.

"We might want to move in" is not enough. The court needs a settled intention. If you don’t know for sure, wait until you do.

4. Re-letting inside the 12-month ban.

Even a short holiday let can trigger the £40,000 penalty. If circumstances change after possession, take advice before doing anything with the property.

5. Not preparing the intended occupier to give evidence.

Bad-faith challenges are common and usually turn on the credibility of the person supposed to be moving in. A witness statement is not enough. The occupier needs to be at the hearing, ready to be cross-examined and able to describe their plans.

6. Skipping the pre-tenancy compliance foundations.

A perfectly drafted Ground 1 notice gets no order while a deposit you took is unprotected, or the prescribed information has not been given (Housing Act 2004, s.215). Gas safety, the EPC and the written statement of terms are still the law, with their own penalties, even though they are not bars to possession.

What LetCompliance handles

On paid plans, LetCompliance’s Section 8 notice builder drafts Form 3A with the current 2026 wording for Ground 1 and Ground 1A, fills in the tenant details from the tenancy record, and gives you:

• The notice PDF, on the correct form
• A time-stamped record of the exact date, method and evidence of service, so proof of service is on file
• A reminder that after Ground 1 or 1A the home cannot be re-let or marketed for 12 months from the date in your notice
• The dated records a judge asks about at hearing, kept with the tenancy: deposit protection dates, gas certificate history, the Information Sheet delivery record and the EPC

This is the kind of support that made Section 21 straightforward. Ground 1 and Ground 1A are harder, and the enforcement risk is real, but the mechanics are manageable if you treat every possession claim as an evidence case from the day you let the property.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk: Renters’ Rights Act 2025, Schedule 2 (Grounds for possession)
• legislation.gov.uk: Housing Act 1988, Schedule 2 (as amended)
• GOV.UK: Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (legislation.gov.uk)
• GOV.UK: Assured tenancy forms (Form 3A for private landlords; last updated 1 May 2026)