How long can your landlord take to evict you in order to sell?
If your landlord wants to recover the property in order to sell it, the law sets out exactly how long the process takes. The headline number is four months — but the full picture is more interesting, and there's one rule in particular that most landlords don't fully appreciate.
The short answer
Your landlord must give you at least four months' written notice under Ground 1A of the Housing Act 1988. They cannot take possession under that notice during your first twelve months — though the notice itself can be served earlier, provided its four-month expiry falls on or after your twelve-month anniversary. And if they serve notice and then don't actually sell, they cannot re-let the property for twelve months from the date in the notice. That last rule — the twelve-month re-let ban — is the most important thing to understand.
The four-month notice period
Ground 1A is the legal ground a landlord uses to recover a property in order to sell it with vacant possession. It's a mandatory ground, which means that if the landlord proves the facts, the court must order possession. There's no judicial discretion to refuse it.
The notice period under Ground 1A is four months. This is double the two months that applied under the old Section 21 regime. The notice must be in writing, in the statutory prescribed form, and must specify Ground 1A as the reason. A notice that doesn't meet these formalities is invalid.
The four months runs from the date the notice is served on you, not from the date it was written or posted. If service is disputed (because you didn't receive it, for example), the four months runs from the date the landlord can prove you actually received it. This matters in practice — disputes about service are one of the most common reasons possession claims fail.
The twelve-month minimum
Ground 1A cannot grant possession in your first twelve months. This is a new protection under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and didn't exist under the old Section 21 regime. The twelve months is calculated from the start of your tenancy, not from any subsequent renewal or extension.
Your landlord can serve a notice during the first twelve months, but only if the four-month notice period would end on or after your twelve-month anniversary. In practice, this means the earliest a valid notice can be served is around month eight of your tenancy.
A notice that purports to give possession in your first year is invalid — the four-month clock doesn't start running. Serving such a notice is itself a breach of the Act under Section 16E of the Housing Act 1988, with civil penalties of up to £40,000.
What happens after the notice period
If you don't leave at the end of the four-month notice period, your landlord cannot remove you themselves. They must apply to the County Court for a possession order. This adds time to the overall process — typically four to ten weeks for an undefended claim, longer if the claim is contested.
If the court grants the possession order, you're given a date to leave (usually fourteen to forty-two days after the order). If you still don't leave, the landlord must apply for a warrant of possession and arrange for County Court bailiffs to enforce it. Bailiff appointments are running at six to twelve weeks in most parts of the country at the time of writing.
Adding it all together: from the day Ground 1A notice is served to the day a tenant could be physically removed by bailiffs, the timeline is typically eight to twelve months. In a contested case it can be longer.
The twelve-month re-let ban
This is the rule that changes the calculation for landlords, and the one most worth understanding clearly.
If your landlord serves a Ground 1A notice and then doesn't sell the property — whether because they change their mind, the sale falls through, or the property doesn't attract a buyer — they are prohibited from re-letting it for twelve months from the date specified in the notice.
In practical terms, this means the landlord cannot:
- Grant a new assured tenancy of the property.
- Grant any tenancy of more than six months in length.
- Market the property for rent on Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket, OpenRent, SpareRoom, or any other rental portal.
The intention behind the rule is to stop landlords using Ground 1A as a backdoor route to evict tenants for unrelated reasons. If a landlord serves a sale notice and then puts the property back on the rental market, the assumption is that they didn't really intend to sell — and the law penalises them by leaving the property unlettable for a year.
Why this matters to you
The re-let ban changes the maths considerably for any landlord who is "thinking about selling" but hasn't fully committed. Before serving Ground 1A notice, a landlord has to be confident they actually want to sell — because once notice is served, they face a binary choice: sell, or have an empty property for twelve months.
Twelve months of an empty property is expensive. On a £1,500-a-month flat, it's £18,000 of forgone rent, plus the carrying costs (mortgage, service charge, council tax) that the landlord still has to pay during the empty period. For most landlords, that's a far worse outcome than either selling or staying as a landlord.
This means a landlord who serves Ground 1A notice has, in effect, committed to making the sale happen. They have a strong incentive to do whatever it takes to ensure the sale completes — including, increasingly, paying the tenant for co-operation rather than risking a contested eviction that could derail the sale and leave them with an empty property they can't re-let.
For tenants, this is leverage that didn't exist under the old Section 21 regime. A landlord who has served formal notice to sell is a landlord who needs the sale to work. That's a different conversation than the one tenants used to have.
What this means in practice
If your landlord has mentioned selling but hasn't yet served notice, you have time. The earliest formal notice can land is whenever the landlord chooses to serve it — but they're unlikely to serve it lightly, given the twelve-month commitment they're making by doing so. Most landlords spend several weeks or months thinking it over, getting the property valued, talking to estate agents, and weighing the alternatives before they commit.
If formal Ground 1A notice has been served, the timeline ahead is at least four months and probably longer. Use that time well. Plan your move. Save what you can. And — if it suits you — consider whether Umoja's co-operative exit might work better for both of you. A landlord who has already committed to selling is a landlord who is most receptive to a route that makes the sale more likely to complete cleanly.
We've written separately about how a co-operative exit works: What to do if your landlord is selling.
Common questions
How long can a landlord take to evict you in order to sell?
The notice period under Ground 1A is at least four months. If you don't leave at the end of it, the landlord has to go to court and, if necessary, arrange bailiffs — so the full timeline from notice to actually leaving is typically eight to twelve months, and longer if the case is contested.
What is the notice period under Ground 1A?
Four months in writing, on the prescribed form, naming Ground 1A. That's double the two months that applied under the old Section 21.
Can my landlord evict me to sell in my first year?
No. Ground 1A cannot give possession within the first twelve months of your tenancy. A notice can be served earlier, but only if its four-month expiry falls on or after your twelve-month anniversary.
What happens if my landlord serves notice to sell but then doesn't sell?
They generally cannot re-let or re-market the property for twelve months. That re-let ban is a strong reason landlords think hard before serving notice — and why an agreed, co-operative exit can suit them.