I have a tenant who has renewed their tenancy for a fourth year. The recent T.A started on 1 February 26.
I wish to gain possession and know I must serve a notice before 1st May. My understanding is , as the T.A is a renewal of a previous tenancy, same L.L, same Tenant and same property the 4 month rule has been satisfied by the previous T.A and I can give just two months notice now. (the provisions of the Deregulation Act 2015).
If so I am slightly nervous as to whether I can serve the notice on form 6A as it states in the guide
“Form 6A
You cannot use this form:
• if it’s less than 4 months since the tenancy started “
Advise please but only if you feel confident to do so.
Thanks for the reply. I’m getting so many conflicting opinions on this. Open Rent advisers are stating that I can do this and another platform has also said the same. If the other post is correct then a no fault eviction can only be used at exactly two months before the Tenancy term ends. Timing and dates would also be crucial as if it rolls onto a periodic by a day this may change the ball park again.
Extract from another source:
Hi David,
I need to correct something important from my earlier reply. I got the 4 month rule wrong for your situation, and given the deadline involved that matters significantly.
The 4 month Deregulation Act restriction works differently for renewal tenancies. Where a new fixed-term is granted to the same tenant, for the same property, by the same landlord — which is exactly your situation — it is treated as a replacement tenancy in law. The four-month clock runs from the start of the original tenancy, not from each renewal. Your original tenancy started around four years ago, so that restriction was satisfied long ago. The article you found was correct.
This means Section 21 is available to you — but the window is extremely tight. You have until 30 April 2026 to serve a valid S21 notice. If served now, the two-month notice period will expire in early June, after abolition on 1 May — but that is fine. What matters is that the notice is served before 1 May. You would then need to issue court proceedings by 31 July 2026 to preserve its enforceability.
Given you have fewer than 30 days and the consequences of getting this wrong are significant, I would strongly recommend speaking to a specialist housing solicitor as a matter of urgency — today if possible, not later this week.
I think you need to consult an eviction specialist, rather than rely on a forum such as this.
As an aside, I doubt anybody here would have recommended the historical tenancy renewals that you have already done. That appears to be the cause of your problems, as if the tenancy had been allowed to roll into periodic (which is what most here recommend), servicing a Section 21 would not have been an issue. Its irrelevant now of course.
I have always assumed that granting a renewal for 1 year would mean that there is no option to use S21 until the requisite notice period, 2 months under the old rules.
Given that is long past 1st May I suspect S21 is not an option
Not quite. Its that a s21 can’t expire during the fixed term. The minimum notice is 2 months, but you can serve a longer notice, up to 6 months, after which its of no effect. The issue for you is that this still wouldn’t take you to January and in any case the deadline for using it in a court possession case is 31 July 26 courtesy of the RRA.