Student Landlords and the Renters’ Rights Act – Part 3

This is the third part of my series on how the Renters’ Rights Act will affect student landlords — particularly those letting smaller shared houses.

Links to the other posts can be found in the Series Overview.

Since writing Parts 1 and 2, the bill has received Royal Assent and become the Renters Rights Act 2025, hence the change in the post name and image.

This series looks at how the Renters’ Rights Bill (now Act) affects smaller private student landlords rather than universities or purpose-built student accommodation.

In previous parts, I examined fixed-term abolition and new rent rules. This post looks at the new student eviction ground.

But is this solving a real problem?

This is probably going to be the least useful post in this series for landlords.

Although potentially, student tenants staying beyond the academic year can cause big problems, in point of fact, most students (so I understand) are only too happy to leave. Very few stay on.

Unless maybe they need accommodation for more than one academic year, in which case they will usually have agreed this with their landlord in advance.

However, the government have provided a new eviction ground for student landlords which I need to tell you about.

Ground 4A.

The new ground for possession is Ground 4A, which (on commencement of the Act) will be in Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988.

Let’s take a look at it.

Conditions for use

The ground can only be used if the following conditions are met:

• The property is an HMO or is in an HMO
• The tenant is a full-time student, or the landlord reasonably believes the tenant will become a full-time student during the tenancy
• If the tenancy is a joint and several one, this requirement to be a full-time student must apply to all the joint tenants
• “Full-time student” means someone on a full-time course of a type described in the ground (which should include most common course types).
• The landlord must have given the tenant/s, before the tenancy is entered into*, a written statement saying they wish to be able to recover possession on this ground
• The period between the tenancy being entered into and the tenancy start (ie when the tenant/s move in) is six months or less.
• The ‘relevant date’, ie the date specified in the Section 8 notice, must be between 1 June and 30 September in any year

*I discussed the meaning of a tenancy being ‘entered into’ in Part 2.

For existing tenancies at commencement, landlords can comply with the notice requirement by serving a notice on the tenants within 28 days of the tenancy becoming an assured tenancy (ie within 28 days of the Act coming into force).

Other possession grounds

Probably the only other ground that student landlords are likely to use is the serious rent arrears ground, ground 8.

However, after commencement, the mandatory ground eight will only be available once the tenants are three months in arrears, and the notice period is now four weeks.  So this will be fairly far on in the academic year.

There are still the discretionary grounds 10 and 11. Plus if the tenants behave badly, there are discretionary grounds that can be used.  But all of these claims will take time.  Too much time to be of any great practical use.

The big problem

The big problem, so far as evicting student tenants is concerned, is the time it will take to do it. At the moment, it takes between 6 months to a year to evict a tenant.

So if a landlord is considering the student ground, by the time it has become apparent that the current students are not going to be moving out, the next tenants will be clamouring to be let in.

Ground 4A doesn’t create a fast-track process. The courts must still follow ordinary possession timelines, so landlords may not recover the property until long after the new academic year begins.

So I can’t see how ground 4A will help landlords much.

All a landlord can do is try to protect his position by making the tenancy conditional upon the current tenants vacating – which I discussed briefly in Part 1 of this series and in the comments to that post.

There is also the fact that a substantial proportion of student lets are not HMOs, so those landlords won’t be able to use the ground anyway.

Is it worth serving a ground 4 notice?

Although I have reservations about the usefulness of ground 4A, I think landlords may as well serve the required notice.   It is an additional string to your eviction bow, and you never know, the government might introduce a fast-track procedure.

You can’t serve the notice now (October 2025) as the act is not yet in force.  However, after that, if the conditions set out above apply, you may as well serve the notice.

Note that for existing tenancies at the commencement of the Act, you will be able to serve the 4A notice, but there will be a time limit.

In conclusion

The government seems to think that they have ‘solved’ student landlord problems by providing possession ground 4A.

However, in my view, this is going to be more or less useless. It is there to solve a problem which rarely happens anyway, ie tenants refusing to move out to allow the new signed-up tenants to move in.

If this situation were to happen, which would indeed cause serious problems, I can’t see how ground 4 can help, in the short term anyway, unless the court rules are amended to allow emergency applications.

Otherwise, the claim will take so long that the incoming tenants will have found somewhere else to live long before a possession order is made.

Unless the government introduces a quicker possession process, Ground 4A will do little to protect student landlords from the practical fallout of the new regime.  Although, I suppose it will allow a route to actually evict student tenants (student tenancies which meet the requirements anyway), if this becomes necessary.

The real problem for student landlords is that discussed in Part 1, ie the right for tenants to move out and end their tenancy early.

Next time, I will be looking at the options available for student landlords.  Find links to all the posts in the Series Overview.

For some more general information on the new Act, see these helpful FAQ for landlords on my Landlord Law site.