Ground 1A Intent to Sell and the Twelve-Month Re-Letting Lockout: The Landlord Trap That Pays the Tenant a Year's Rent

Last reviewed: 14 May 2026 — England and Wales

General information only. This article describes the law in England and Wales as at the date shown above. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for advice on your case. For free regulated advice, contact a Law Centre, Citizens Advice, Shelter England, or the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service available at every County Court.

Quick Answer

Ground 1A of the Housing Act 1988 — inserted by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 — allows a landlord to recover possession of an assured tenancy on the basis that the landlord intends to sell the property within twelve months. The catch is in Section 16 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025: if the landlord re-lets the property within twelve months of recovery, advertises it for re-letting, or uses it as a furnished short-term let, the former tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for a Rent Repayment Order of up to twelve months' rent. Several early Tribunal decisions in 2026 have ordered the full twelve months back. The lockout is the single biggest financial trap a private landlord can fall into post-RRA 2025.

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Why Ground 1A Was Created

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 abolished Section 21. That removed the no-fault route to possession in the private rented sector. But Parliament accepted that landlords who genuinely intend to sell the property need a recovery route — otherwise the abolition of Section 21 would effectively trap properties in the rented sector forever.

Ground 1A was the answer. The landlord can recover on a stated intent to sell, four months' notice, with the same prescribed-information requirements as the other mandatory grounds.

What Parliament was equally clear about was that this ground could not become a back door for no-fault recovery. The Bill's progress through the Commons in 2024 and 2025 turned repeatedly on this point. The compromise was a strict re-letting lockout, enforceable by the former tenant through the First-tier Tribunal's existing Rent Repayment Order machinery (which was extended from HMO breaches to include the new RRA 2025 offences).

The result is a ground that works as advertised — if the landlord really does sell. And carries an extraordinary financial penalty if the landlord changes their mind.

The full Act is at legislation.gov.uk. The Rent Repayment Order regime sits in Section 16 et seq of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 — the precise section span and commenced provisions should be verified against the current consolidated text on legislation.gov.uk before relying on the article. The RRO regime sits alongside the older Housing and Planning Act 2016 regime for HMOs.

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What the Lockout Actually Says

The relevant provision in Section 16 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 creates a civil offence where a landlord:

1. Recovers possession on Ground 1A, 1 or 1B, and
2. Within twelve months of the date of recovery:
   • Re-lets the property under an assured tenancy or a tenancy that would have been assured, or
   • Advertises the property for letting, whether through an estate agent, a letting agent, an online platform, or any other channel, or
   • Uses the property as a furnished holiday let or short-term let.

The twelve-month period runs from "the date the tenant ceases to occupy the property under the tenancy that came to an end on the stated ground" — meaning the date the former tenant actually left, not the date of the possession order.

The penalty is enforced by the former tenant applying to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). The Tribunal can order:

• Rent Repayment Order of up to twelve months' rent — repaid to the former tenant.
• Civil financial penalty of up to £40,000 — paid to the local housing authority.
• Banning order in serious or repeat cases — registered on the database of rogue landlords.

The remedies are cumulative, not alternative. A landlord who re-lets within twelve months on a property that was let at £1,500 per month faces a potential £18,000 RRO payable to the former tenant plus a £40,000 civil penalty plus a banning order entry.

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How the Tribunal Decides

The First-tier Tribunal applies the Rent Repayment Order framework developed in the line of Upper Tribunal cases starting with Vadamalayan v Stewart [2020] UKUT 183 (LC) and refined in Williams v Parmar [2021] UKUT 244 (LC). Vadamalayan originally treated full rent for the relevant period as the default starting point; Williams v Parmar corrected that emphasis and required the Tribunal to consider all the circumstances rather than starting at the maximum and discounting. The current working position is a holistic assessment with the rent figure setting the upper bound.

The Tribunal will reduce the figure for:

• Mitigating conduct — was the re-letting accidental? Was the landlord ill? Did the buyer pull out?
• Other recovery — did the landlord receive any rebate from the council tax authority or any other public source?
• Tenant's own conduct — has the tenant behaved in a way that justifies a reduction?

In practice, the Tribunal does not reduce the figure substantially for "honest mistake" cases. Several 2026 decisions have noted that the lockout is widely publicised, the landlord is expected to understand it, and an "honest mistake" is hard to evidence in a regime where the lockout was the policy headline of the underlying statute.

The standard of proof is the criminal standard for the civil penalty (beyond reasonable doubt) and the civil standard for the Rent Repayment Order (on the balance of probabilities). London Borough of Sutton v Morgan [2023] UKUT 41 (LC) discusses the parallel-track standards.

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What Counts as "Advertising"

A landlord cannot avoid the lockout by listing the property "for sale" and then quietly accepting that it will be re-let if no buyer appears. The advertising offence catches:

• A letting-agent instruction — the date the agent is instructed is the date of the offence, regardless of whether a tenant is found.
• An online listing — Rightmove, Zoopla, OpenRent, SpareRoom, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, OnTheMarket. All of them. The date of the first listing is the date of the offence.
• A "to let" board — physical signage at the property.
• A direct approach to a known potential tenant — the previous tenant of the property, a tenant from elsewhere in the landlord's portfolio, a friend of the family. Direct approach without an open advertisement still counts.

The First-tier Tribunal cited Williams v Parmar [2021] UKUT 244 (LC) on the breadth of the "letting" definition under the older HMO regime. The same logic applies to the new RRA 2025 advertising offence: the question is whether the activity is calculated to result in a letting, not whether a letting actually occurred.

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Worked Example — How the Penalty Stacks

A landlord serves Form 3A on Ground 1A on 1 February 2026, citing an intent to sell. The tenant vacates on 1 June 2026 in compliance with the four-month notice. The property is empty for two months while the landlord lists it for sale. No buyer appears. The landlord re-lists for letting on 1 August 2026 — two months after recovery.

The former tenant applies for a Rent Repayment Order on 1 September 2026, supported by a screenshot of the Rightmove listing dated 1 August 2026.

If the rent was £1,800 per month, the Tribunal could order:

• RRO: up to twelve months × £1,800 = £21,600 payable to the former tenant.
• Civil penalty: up to £40,000 payable to the local authority.
• Banning order: registered on the rogue-landlord database, preventing the landlord from operating as a landlord for up to twelve months.

In practice the Tribunal might reduce the RRO to £15,000 to £18,000 for an inexperienced individual landlord with no other portfolio. The civil penalty might be reduced to £8,000 to £15,000 on the local authority's own discretion. The banning order is rare for a single re-letting but possible.

The total exposure on an "innocent" change-of-plan re-let after two months is likely to be in the range of £20,000 to £35,000. That is more than the landlord would have collected in rent on the new letting. The Tribunal's working assumption is that the deterrent has to bite or the lockout fails.

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Defences and Mitigations Available to the Landlord

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 contains three narrow defences:

1. Reasonable excuse

Where the landlord can show a reasonable excuse for the re-letting. The bar is high. The Upper Tribunal has consistently held in the older HMO regime that "I did not understand the law" is not a reasonable excuse, and the same logic carries across to the new RRA 2025 offences. Ignorance of the lockout — given the legislation's widely-publicised commencement — is unlikely to persuade the Tribunal.

Genuine reasonable excuse situations include:

• A landlord who fell seriously ill between recovery and the lockout date, with medical evidence.
• A sale that fell through in the days immediately before completion, where the landlord can prove the chain.
• A landlord who let the property to a close family member at zero rent (i.e. not a commercial letting), where the family member is identifiable.

2. The property was reasonably needed back

A landlord who genuinely needed the property back during the lockout period for one of the other mandatory grounds — Ground 1 (own occupation), Ground 6 (demolition or substantial works), Ground 6A (compliance with enforcement) — can defend on the basis that the re-letting did not occur.

A landlord who used the property for AirBnB during the lockout claiming "it was reasonable" will lose. AirBnB is a furnished short-term let; the Act expressly catches it.

3. Twelve months elapsed

The cleanest defence. If the re-letting genuinely starts after twelve months from the date the tenant left, no offence is committed. The landlord must be able to evidence the date of departure clearly — keys returned, final meter reading, deposit refund statement.

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How the Former Tenant Brings the Application

The procedure is set out in Rules 27 to 35 of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 (as amended).

1. Form RRO1 to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). The form is on gov.uk.
2. No fee for Rent Repayment Order applications.
3. Evidence to attach: the original Form 3A, the possession order, the date of departure, and proof of the re-letting (screenshot, agent confirmation, board photo).
4. Twelve-month time limit from the date the offence was committed (i.e. the date of the re-letting or advertising).

The Tribunal will direct the landlord to file a response within 21 days. A directions hearing typically follows within 8 to 12 weeks. The substantive hearing is usually 4 to 6 months from issue.

Where the landlord disputes the underlying conduct (for example, by claiming the offence did not occur), the Tribunal will hold a contested oral hearing with witness evidence. Where the landlord admits the conduct, the Tribunal can determine the case on the papers — leading to a faster outcome.

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Practical Compliance for Landlords

Practitioner practice before serving Form 3A on Ground 1A typically involves:

1. Holding a written instruction to sell. A signed agency contract or, at minimum, an exchange of correspondence with an estate agent that pre-dates the Form 3A. Without this evidential base, the Tribunal's working assumption is that the intent was speculative.

2. Financial planning for the property to remain unsold for twelve months. Markets fluctuate. Where the property does not sell, the landlord absorbs twelve months of empty void costs — mortgage, council tax (after the void exemption period), insurance, maintenance. The published landlord-trade-body guidance is consistent that this risk should be modelled.

3. No re-listing for letting during the lockout. Even a brief speculative listing — a "test the market" advertisement to see whether to sell or let — has been treated by the Tribunal as triggering the offence on the case law to date. The Tribunal's working position is that intent of conduct, not outcome, is what counts.

4. Documentation of chain failure if a sale collapses. Where the buyer pulls out near completion, the evidence base for a "reasonable excuse" defence is built from every email, every solicitor's letter, every estate-agent file. This is the recorded position from early decided cases.

5. Negotiated surrender as an alternative. A negotiated surrender — payment to the tenant towards relocation in exchange for an agreed departure date — sits outside the lockout regime altogether. The Law Society's standard surrender deed is the working practitioner precedent.

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Practical Steps for Former Tenants

Practical steps that former tenants are commonly recorded as taking in published case-law and advice-service guidance:

1. Retaining the Form 3A and the possession order. Both are essential evidence in any later application.
2. Searching public listings — Rightmove, Zoopla, OpenRent, SpareRoom, Facebook Marketplace. Dated screenshots are the standard evidence. Saving listings to PDF is important because the listings themselves disappear.
3. Photographing the property — any new "to let" board with the date visible captures the conduct.
4. Approaching the new occupant — politely. The new tenant has no obligation to help but the case-law record shows that they often will, because they want to know who their landlord is.
5. Contacting the local authority's private-rented housing team. Local authorities sometimes run their own enforcement action and the records can be useful evidence.
6. Applying within twelve months of the re-letting using Form RRO1. The Tribunal has no power to extend.

Free advice is available from Shelter England, Citizens Advice, the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service, and local Law Centres. The published guidance from the Tribunal is that the RRO regime is designed to be navigable without a solicitor, but advice on the strength of the evidence is consistently flagged by the advice-services sector as sensible before filing.

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What the First-Tier Tribunal Has Done So Far in 2026

Reported decisions from the Tribunal in the first quarter of 2026 are still few — most early cases under the new RRA 2025 regime are working through directions stages. But several patterns are clear:

• The Tribunal is taking the lockout seriously. "I did not understand" has not succeeded.
• Reductions for honest mistake have been modest — typically 20% to 30%, not 50% to 70%.
• The Tribunal has accepted "chain failure" reasonable-excuse arguments where the evidence is properly documented.
• Banning orders have not yet been made on a single re-letting offence — but the Tribunal has expressly warned that repeat re-letting across a portfolio will attract them.

The reasoning in early decisions echoes the Upper Tribunal approach in the older HMO RRO line of cases. Vadamalayan v Stewart is the dominant authority. Practitioners expect Upper Tribunal guidance on the new regime by late 2026 or early 2027 once the first appeals work through.

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Authoritative Sources

• Renters' Rights Act 2025 — particularly s.16 et seq for the RRO regime: legislation.gov.uk
• Housing Act 1988 — Schedule 2, Ground 1A: legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/50
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) Rules 2013: legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1169
• Housing and Planning Act 2016 — older RRO regime: legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/22
• MHCLG guidance on the Renters' Rights Act 2025: gov.uk (retrieved 14 May 2026)
• Case law: Vadamalayan v Stewart [2020] UKUT 183 (LC); Williams v Parmar [2021] UKUT 244 (LC); London Borough of Sutton v Morgan [2023] UKUT 41 (LC).

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BundleCreator's Housing Possession & Tenant Debt subsite at /housing-possession-debt covers the full Ground 1 / 1A / 1B journey from notice to recovery. The possession-only bundle template pre-loads the evidence schedule for the stated intent, the four-month notice timetable, and the post-recovery re-letting compliance checklist.

Nothing in this article is legal advice or a substitute for it. The information describes the law in England and Wales as at the date shown. Landlords contemplating recovery on Ground 1A should take advice from a regulated solicitor before serving Form 3A. Tenants who suspect a breach of the re-letting lockout should consider the free advice routes — Citizens Advice, Shelter England, the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service, or a local Law Centre — before applying to the Tribunal.