The second crucial deadline for section 21 notices and Making Tax Digital?

Most, if not all, landlords understand that from 1 May 2026, the section 21 route to exit the Private Rented Sector will cease to exist. But there’s another crucial deadline that I suspect not everyone has noticed. I think I’ve got this right, but I’m posting this partly to check that?

The first deadline is that notices to regain possession under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 can be served up until midnight on 30 April 2026. However, it would be much better if they are served well before the deadline because service must comply with the statutory rules, it must be in accordance with the provisions of individual tenancy agreements, it must be verifiable, and the deadline is “hard”.

The long-standing procedures for deciding the termination date and notice period to be stated in such notices continue to apply. Dates are of fundamental and non-negotiable importance in the process and depend upon whether a contractual or a periodic term is being terminated. In my experience, only very experienced and knowledgeable landlords and specialist advisers can be relied upon to get those dates right. The average solicitor who hasn’t had much to do with the PRS could easily make a mistake which is fatal to the procedure.

The second deadline relates to applications to the court for a possession order. These can be made at a date after 2 months from service of the s21 notice, but must be made at the earlier of 6 months from that date and 31 July 2026. It is the July date which some may have missed. It’s in the government guidance, and I have checked that it is in accordance with the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/renting-out-your-property-guidance-for-landlords-and-letting-agents/giving-notice-to-evict-tenants

For a s21 notice served on 30 April with a valid termination date the earliest date for an application is 1 July 2026 and the latest date for an application is 31 July so if you leave it to the last day there is only a 1 month “window” instead of the 4 months (6 months minus the 2 month s21 notice period) which has applied until now.

I therefore suggest that landlords who do want to get out should aim to start the process in January 2026. This is 3 months before the 30th April deadline and will create the full 4 month window for making your application. And you have plenty of time to check and double-check that everything is being done correctly. Mistakes are most often made when one feels under pressure. Making this one of the first things you do in the New Year will take the pressure off.

MAKING TAX DIGITAL

There’s another angle to this. MTD, with its additional costs and onerous filing requirements, is going to catch a lot of landlords. On its own, perhaps it’s not a crucial problem, but it is definitely another straw to add to all the others currently breaking the will of landlords to continue. Recent discussions on the leading accountancy forum https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/ have highlighted the difficulties of avoiding what is called “mandation” – the mandatory compliance with MTD. There is a widely-held view that when it becomes known just how difficult MTD is going to be (more about that below) there will be many PRS landlords who want to close their business.

It is now too late for a landlord whose property income exceeds the MTD threshold and whose tenants won’t leave voluntarily before 5 April 2026 to avoid being brought into MTD, but even allowing for the well known court and bailiff delays, it should still be possible to close such a business during the tax year 2026-2027. The best way to achieve this is to use the s21 route, and to achieve this, the two deadlines described above must not be missed.

Why do I say MTD is going to be difficult? It’s because the four quarterly MTD filings and the final return can only be made through approved software. HMRC are not going to provide a way of filing over the internet as they do now for self-assessment. More than half the small businesses in the UK don’t use an accountant, so they will have to buy or subscribe to their own MTD software. If there is something they don’t understand or they can see that the software is giving an incorrect result, it will be no use trying to contact HMRC because HMRC will not be dealing with MTD queries.

I’ll emphasise that. HMRC is not going to provide MTD support. From HMRC’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if taxpayers know nothing about MTD because MTD will start, HMRC will fine taxpayers who don’t comply, those fines will bring the matter to taxpayers’ attention, taxpayers won’t be able to sort it out direct with HMRC because taxpayers don’t deal direct with HMRC for MTD, instead taxpayers will have a choice of either going to an accountant, or buying software and relying on the software provider for support. The catch is that if you have ever tried to get meaningful support from a software supplier, you will know how hard and how time-consuming it can be. It’s sometimes worse than trying to get HMRC to solve problems. It’s going to be worse than usual for MTD software because the typical automated help desk is going to know almost nothing about tax questions, and the human agents probably will not know much either. The tax software companies do employ qualified tax experts (well, some of them do), but those people are not going to be accessible directly.

THE STRAWS BREAKING THE CAMEL’S BACK

I said that MTD is just another straw. But just think how many straws there are. You don’t need me to list them.

I’m with Mark Alexander, who wrote on 14th December*, ‘Never again will I be letting another property in the UK.’ I never thought Mark would throw in the towel, but that’s what he is doing. My expectation is that during the next 12 months, there is going to be a flood of landlords leaving the PRS, which will lead to court delays worse than those we see now. If that’s right, getting those s21 notices in during January and booking a slot in the court applications list becomes really important.

*https://www.property118.com/when-britain-last-faced-a-housing-crisis-lenders-became-mega-landlords-the-same-pattern-could-emerge-again/