Landlord possession claims under Section 21 no-fault eviction rules rose 16 per cent between April and June compared to the previous year, official Ministry of Justice statistics show.
The 8,463 possession cases recorded between April and June represent a 31 per cent jump compared to the 6,472 cases registered between January and March. The rise occurred during the final months before new legal rights for tenants came into force.
Section 21 procedures previously allowed landlords to ask tenants to leave without providing a valid reason. Following the introduction of the Renters' Rights Act on 1 May, no-fault evictions were banned across England. Landlords must now prove specific legal grounds to evict tenants, such as rent arrears, anti-social behaviour, or an intention to sell the property.
Official figures show that claim levels between April and June were similar to peak periods in 2024, when 8,317 cases were recorded between April and June and 8,419 between July and September. Spiking mortgage rates during 2024 prompted many landlords to sell properties or evict tenants to increase rental charges.
Tenant Campaigners And Landlord Sell Off Warnings
Housing campaigners noted that while late evictions occurred, the surge was less dramatic than initially feared. Clara Collingwood, director at the Renters' Reform Coalition, said: "Any Section 21 eviction is one too many, and while these statistics suggest there were fewer last-minute evictions than many of us feared, it's clear that many landlords did use Section 21 one last time to evict their tenants before 1 May."
Prior to the new law coming into effect, property industry groups warned that the Renters' Rights Act would trigger a widespread landlord sell-off and reduce the overall supply of rental homes. Research published in April by buy-to-let mortgage lender Pepper Money suggested that the UK rental market could see up to 220,000 fewer homes available to rent by the end of 2026.
Estimates released in May by property consultancy Savills indicated that 254,000 previously let buy-to-let properties were listed for sale in the 12 months to the end of March. That volume is the equivalent of 697 rental properties being listed for sale every day.
Rising Supply And Build To Rent Developments
Despite increased sales listings, new rental supply during the year to date was 17.4 per cent higher than in 2025, according to letting agent membership body Propertymark. This represents an addition of 108,300 properties, marking the highest level of new rental supply recorded in seven years.
Propertymark stated that the recent surge in available rental homes has been partly driven by Build to Rent schemes. These developments are typically owned and operated by institutional investors or large corporate landlords rather than individual buy-to-let investors. In theory, an increase in total rental property construction could also lead to a higher baseline of evictions across the sector.
Property experts also suggested that a sluggish general housing market may have kept total eviction numbers lower than anticipated ahead of the deadline. Certain types of flats are currently selling at a loss or struggling to attract buyers at all, prompting landlords to keep properties and continue collecting rent rather than attempting a sale.
Analysis by estate agency Hamptons found that fewer landlords attempted to list their properties because evicting tenants without securing a buyer leaves homes vacant. Under regulations introduced on 1 May 2026, landlords who serve a notice to sell face a mandatory 12-month ban on re-letting the property if it does not sell.
Decline Of Small Landlords And Rise Of Corporate Investors
The broader residential rental sector is experiencing a structural shift as small individual landlords exit and corporate investors expand their market share. Propertymark analysis indicates that more than 834,000 homes have left the UK private rented sector over the past decade.
Figures from Savills show that the total value of the UK rental sector fell by £79 billion over three years, bringing its overall valuation to £1.47 trillion. Additional analysis by Savills combining property portal listings with HM Land Registry sales data revealed that rental homes are being sold to owner-occupiers much faster than they are being purchased by landlords.
In 2024, landlords sold 5.4 homes to owner-occupiers for every 1 home bought from owner-occupiers. This 5:1 sell-to-buy ratio represents a significant acceleration from 2021, when the ratio stood at approximately 1:1. Between April 2021 and October 2024, small individual landlords sold an estimated 290,000 properties out of the rental market, while the Build to Rent sector delivered 130,000 new rental homes over the same period.
Industry observers view these figures as evidence of a permanent shift in property ownership. Thomas George, director at Sussex estate agency Mansell McTaggart, said: "The small landlord is leaving, the corporate giant is moving in and nobody's talking about it."
George added: "While 40 per cent of landlords shrink their portfolios and 27 per cent plan to exit entirely, a handful of well-capitalised companies are quietly hoovering up discounted stock at scale."
Mortgage Rate Pressures And Financial Advice
Borrowing costs for property owners have increased as inflation triggered by the conflict with Iran reversed expectations of interest rate cuts by the Bank of England. Higher mortgage rates have increased financial pressure on homeowners remortgaging, prospective buyers, and buy-to-let landlords.
To secure lower rates, landlords and buyers compare two-year, five-year, and ten-year fixed deals across more than 90 lenders through fee-free mortgage brokers such as London & Country Mortgages (L&C). L&C is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under registered number 143002. Most buy-to-let mortgages are not regulated by the FCA, and properties remain subject to repossession if mortgage repayments are not maintained.
