Your tenant offers to leave early after a Ground 1A notice. Can you then re-let?

Updated July 2026 · Based on official gov.uk guidance · General information, not legal advice

Here is the scenario. You have served a four-month Section 8 notice on Ground 1A because you want to sell. Two weeks later your tenant says they have found somewhere and will be out by the end of next month. No court, no bailiff, no argument. Then the sale falls through — or you change your mind — and you think: the tenant left voluntarily, there was never a possession order, so surely the re-letting restriction does not apply to me?

Almost certainly it does apply. The restricted period is triggered by service of the notice, not by how possession actually ends. If you served a notice specifying Ground 1 or Ground 1A, the clock started on the day you served it — regardless of whether the tenant left of their own accord, agreed a surrender, or was removed by a bailiff.

Why the trigger is service, not the court order

This is deliberate drafting. If the restriction only bit when a court made an order, the obvious workaround would be to serve a Ground 1A notice, pressure the tenant into leaving "voluntarily", and then re-let at a higher rent with no consequences. That is precisely the behaviour the restriction exists to stop. Tying it to service closes the loophole.

So the sequence to hold in your head is: notice served → restricted period begins → runs until 12 months after the earliest possession date stated in the notice. Roughly 16 months in total. Nothing the tenant does shortens it.

Honest caveat. This part of the Act is new and has not yet been tested in the higher courts. Some commentators argue that a properly documented deed of surrender would mean the restriction does not apply. We would not rely on that: the downside is a criminal offence and a penalty of up to £40,000. If you are in this position and the money is significant, this is worth an hour of a housing solicitor's time before you list the property to let.

"Cash for keys" — where landlords get it wrong

Offering a tenant money to leave is not unlawful in itself, and a clean negotiated exit is often better for everyone than four months of notice followed by a court queue. But two things go wrong repeatedly:

People think a payment cleans the slate. It does not. If you have already served a Ground 1/1A notice, paying the tenant to go does not lift the re-letting restriction.
People serve the notice first and negotiate afterwards. That is the wrong way round. If you genuinely might keep the property as a rental, do not serve the notice at all — negotiate an agreed surrender first. A surrender that happens with no Ground 1/1A notice ever having been served does not trigger any restricted period, because there was no notice to trigger it.

The practical rule. Decide before you serve anything. If you are certain you are selling or moving in, serve Ground 1A or Ground 1 and accept the restricted period as the cost. If there is any real chance you will want to re-let, keep the notice in the drawer and open a conversation instead. Serving "just to apply pressure" is the expensive mistake.

If you do negotiate a surrender

Get it in writing, dated, signed by every joint tenant, stating the date they will give up possession and that the tenancy ends on that date. Deal with the deposit and any arrears in the same document. Take meter readings and photographs on the day the keys come back. An informal "they said they'd go" is how landlords end up with a tenancy that legally still exists and a new occupier they cannot evict.

If there is more than one tenant on the agreement, note that the rules on joint tenancies matter here too — a surrender needs all of them.

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More guides

Ground 1A and the 12-month re-letting ban · One sharer leaves: joint tenancies · You've got a possession order — what next?