Tenant Won’t Leave After a Notice? What a Landlord Can Do

You served the notice, it expired, and the tenant is still in the property. It is one of the most stressful moments a landlord faces, and the moment when the wrong instinct causes the most damage. You cannot change the locks, cut off utilities, or move their things out. Doing any of that is a criminal offence, and it turns you from the landlord who is owed possession into the landlord who is prosecuted.

This guide sets out what you legally can and cannot do when a tenant stays past a notice, and the lawful route that actually gets you the property back.

This is guidance, not legal advice. Possession turns on the facts, so take advice before acting.

First, what you must NOT do

Even an expired notice does not give you the right to remove the tenant yourself. Removing or harassing a residential occupier other than by the lawful court process is a criminal offence (Protection from Eviction Act 1977). That includes:

• changing or adding locks while the tenant still has possession,
• taking their belongings out, or stopping them getting in,
• cutting off gas, electricity or water to force them out,
• threats, intimidation or repeated pressure to leave (harassment).

The penalties are serious: unlawful eviction and harassment can carry up to two years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine, plus civil damages the tenant can claim. It does not matter that the tenant owes you rent or that the notice has expired. The only lawful way to remove them is through the court.

The lawful route, step by step

Getting possession when a tenant will not leave is a sequence, and each step has to be done before the next:

1. 1A valid notice. A correctly served Section 8 notice on a ground you can prove, with the right notice period. (Since Section 21 ended on 1 May 2026, this is your route.)
2. 2Apply to the county court for a possession order. If the tenant does not leave when the notice expires, you issue a possession claim. Even a mandatory ground needs a hearing and an order. You do not get possession automatically.
3. 3The possession order. If you make out your ground, the court orders possession, usually giving the tenant a date to leave (often 14 days, sometimes longer for hardship).
4. 4If they STILL do not leave: a warrant of possession. You go back to the court for a warrant, which authorises county court bailiffs to carry out the eviction. Only certified bailiffs (or High Court Enforcement Officers on transfer) can physically remove a tenant.
5. 5The bailiffs attend and give possession. This is the only lawful point at which the tenant is removed and you get the keys back.

At no point in that chain are you allowed to take matters into your own hands. The bailiff appointment is the finish line, not the day the notice expired, and not the day of the possession order.

How long, and what it costs

Be realistic about both. Once the notice period is over, you join the county court queue for the hearing. If a warrant is needed, the bailiff queue comes on top. A straightforward case can still take months from notice to keys; a contested one can run past a year.

The court fees (GOV.UK EX50, checked July 2026):

• Issue a possession claim: around £415.
• Warrant of possession: £152.

You can apply to transfer enforcement to the High Court for potentially faster High Court Enforcement Officers, which costs more. Either way, budget for the wait and the fees, and keep the rent account running: a Ground 8 arrears case, for example, depends on the arrears at the hearing date.

What to do while you wait

The waiting is real, but it is not passive:

• Keep every record. Rent statements, the notice and proof of service, all correspondence. A clean paper trail is what wins the hearing.
• Accepting rent is normally fine. Taking the rent, or payments towards the arrears, does not normally undermine a Section 8 claim. If you are unsure how a particular payment affects your ground, take advice.
• Stay lawful, however frustrating it gets. One locked door or cut-off supply can convert your possession claim into a criminal charge and a damages bill against you.
• Get advice early if the tenant defends or raises disrepair. A counterclaim can offset arrears and change the picture.

How LetCompliance helps: a possession claim is won on records you started keeping long before the notice. On paid plans, the Section 8 notice builder (Form 3A) sets out the ground, works out the arrears, and gives you the right notice period and the earliest lawful date. The rent ledger holds every payment and every missed one in date order, the tenancy agreement and your proof of service sit with the property’s documents, and the possession tracker keeps each stage, from notice to warrant, in one place.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk: Protection from Eviction Act 1977, section 1
• GOV.UK: Evicting tenants (England): possession orders and bailiffs
• GOV.UK: Court fees (EX50)

Why "just change the locks" ends your landlord career

The post opens with what you must not do. It is worth being blunt about why, because landlords under real financial pressure talk themselves into it, and the consequences are not proportionate to the frustration that caused them.

Unlawfully evicting or harassing a residential occupier is a criminal offence under section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. On summary conviction it carries a fine; tried on indictment it carries imprisonment for up to two years, a fine, or both. Local authorities have dedicated tenancy relations officers who bring these prosecutions, and they are brought.

That is only the first layer. The tenant can also sue you civilly for damages, which in serious cases have run well beyond a year's rent. And unlawful eviction is one of the offences that triggers a Rent Repayment Order: repay up to two years' rent to the tenant, a maximum that was doubled on 1 May 2026, and the maximum can apply where the landlord has been convicted or fined for the offence.

What counts is wider than most landlords assume. It is not only changing the locks. Removing the tenant's belongings, disconnecting gas, water or electricity, removing a door, entering repeatedly without notice, threatening behaviour, or bringing people round to make them uncomfortable can all amount to harassment or unlawful eviction. That includes cases where the tenancy has genuinely ended and the tenant has no right to be there.

The principle to hold on to is simple. Once a tenant is in occupation, only a court order executed by a bailiff removes them. Being completely in the right about the possession ground does not create a shortcut.

What the court process actually looks like now

One structural change matters here and is easy to miss: the accelerated possession procedure was attached to Section 21, and it went with it. There is no paper-only fast track any more. A Section 8 claim is a standard possession claim, and you should plan for a hearing.

The sequence, with realistic timings:

Issue the claim. Once your notice has expired you apply to the county court, currently £415 to issue. The claim must set out the ground and the particulars supporting it: for arrears, a full rent schedule.

The defence window. The tenant has 14 days to file a defence. Many do not, but a defence, particularly a disrepair counterclaim, is what turns a straightforward arrears claim into a contested one.

The hearing. Listing times vary enormously by court. Six to ten weeks after issue is a reasonable expectation; some regions are considerably worse.

The order. If you succeed, the court normally orders possession in 14 days. Where the tenant shows exceptional hardship it may postpone for up to six weeks, but no longer, on a mandatory ground. On a discretionary ground the court has wider powers to adjourn, suspend or postpone.

Enforcement. If they still do not leave, you apply for a warrant of possession (form N325, £152) and a county court bailiff carries out the eviction. Bailiff waiting times are the least predictable part of the whole process and frequently add another four to eight weeks. Transfer to the High Court for a writ is faster but requires permission and costs more.

Add it up and plan for around six months: in April to June 2026 the Ministry of Justice median from a landlord's claim to repossession was 27.1 weeks, and that comes on top of the notice period itself. This is the arithmetic that makes a rent guarantee policy or an early conversation worth more than being right.

What to do while it runs

The waiting period is not dead time. What you do in it decides both how the hearing goes and how much you eventually recover.

Keep the rent account impeccable. For Ground 8 the arrears must meet the threshold at both the notice date and the hearing date. A tenant who makes a payment shortly before the hearing that drops the balance below three months' rent can defeat a mandatory ground on the day. Know your figure going in, and take an up-to-date schedule to court.

Keep accepting rent. Landlords worry that accepting payment undermines the claim. With a Section 8 claim it normally does not, whether it is the rent or a payment towards the arrears, and refusing payment simply increases your losses while looking unreasonable to a judge. If you are unsure, take advice.

Answer every repair report, in writing, promptly. This is the counterclaim defence, and it is built now or not at all. A tenant facing possession has every reason to look back through the tenancy for unanswered problems.

Do not stop communicating. A negotiated departure is very often cheaper than the court route: a date agreed in writing, sometimes with a modest contribution to moving costs or a portion of the arrears written off. Compare it against around six months of lost rent (the median from claim to repossession was 27.1 weeks in April to June 2026) plus £567 in court fees before you dismiss it.

Keep the paperwork ready. The tenancy agreement, the deposit protection certificate and prescribed information, the notice and proof of service, the rent schedule, and the repair correspondence. If the deposit was not protected, on most grounds the court cannot make a possession order until it is protected with the prescribed information given (late still counts) or returned, so deal with it before you issue, not on the day.