Section 8 for rent arrears: Grounds 8, 10 and 11

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

Rent arrears is now the most-used route to possession. The grounds themselves are the same ones landlords used before — but with Section 21 gone, the details matter far more than they used to.

The three arrears grounds

Ground	Type	Notice	What it covers
8	Mandatory	4 weeks	At least 3 months' rent unpaid (or 13 weeks if rent is weekly/fortnightly), both when notice is served and at the hearing
10	Discretionary	4 weeks	Any rent lawfully due and unpaid, below the Ground 8 threshold
11	Discretionary	4 weeks	Persistent late payment, even if the account is square on the day

Mandatory means that if you prove it, the court must order possession. Discretionary means the court also has to be satisfied it is reasonable — and can suspend the order on terms instead.

The trap in Ground 8. The arrears must be at the threshold on the day you serve and on the day of the hearing. A tenant who pays enough to drop under three months the morning of the hearing knocks out your mandatory ground entirely. This happens constantly. It is exactly why you cite Grounds 10 and 11 alongside 8 — if 8 falls away, you still have something live in front of the judge.

Always plead all three

There is no downside. Ground 8 gets you the mandatory outcome if the arrears hold up; Grounds 10 and 11 catch the tenant who part-pays strategically or who has paid late every month for two years. All three share the same four-week notice period, so pleading them together costs you nothing in time.

Before you serve: check your deposit compliance

This is the newest and most expensive trap. The court can now only make a possession order under Section 8 if one of these is true: the deposit was protected in an authorised scheme and the prescribed information was served; or the deposit was returned; or a deposit claim was resolved. The exception is only for the antisocial behaviour grounds (7A and 14). Arrears grounds are not excepted.

Worse, protecting the deposit afterwards does not rescue a notice you served while you were in breach. That notice stays invalid. Fix the deposit first, then serve. There is more detail in our guide on unprotected deposits.

Disrepair counterclaims

Expect one if the property has issues. A tenant in arrears who has been reporting a leak, damp, or a broken boiler can counterclaim for damages for disrepair, and the court can set that award off against the arrears. We regularly see counterclaims that swallow most of a five-figure arrears balance, and where the property is genuinely in poor condition a judge may find it unreasonable to make a discretionary order at all.

Do this before you serve. Pull every repair report the tenant has made and check what you did about each one. If there is something outstanding, get it fixed and documented now. A landlord who can show every report was attended within days is in a completely different position from one whose inbox shows four ignored emails about a leak.

Getting the notice right

Use the current prescribed Form 3 for a Section 8 notice. An out-of-date form is a wasted four weeks.
Set out the arrears clearly — a schedule of what was due, what was paid, and the running balance. Vague figures get notices struck out.
Serve it properly and prove it: email plus first-class post, keep the sent email, photograph the addressed envelope, note the date.
Keep the rent account updated right up to the hearing. You will need a current schedule on the day.

Talk first, if there is anything to talk about. A tenant whose housing benefit has stalled, or who has had a month out of work, can often be brought back on track with a written repayment plan. If they then break the plan, that strengthens a later Ground 11 claim considerably. Court costs you months and a filing fee; a payment plan costs you an afternoon.

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