The twelve-month re-let ban starts the day you post the notice, not the day the tenant leaves

There is a piece of arithmetic that a lot of landlords planning a sale this autumn have not done, and I keep running into it.

Everyone knows that using Ground 1 or Ground 1A locks you out of the lettings market for twelve months.

Almost nobody agrees on when that clock starts and stops. I have read four guides giving four different answers. Only one matched the law.

When the clock starts and stops

The restricted period begins on the day the notice is served, and ends twelve months after the date written in the notice as the earliest date court proceedings can begin (section 16M(4) of the Housing Act 1988, inserted by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025).

Both halves matter. The start is service. Not expiry, not the hearing, not the day the keys come back. The moment the notice goes out, you are inside the restricted period. And the end is measured from the date in the notice, which must be at least four months after service. So the real exposure is four months plus twelve.

Take a tenancy that began on 1 June 2026. Ground 1A cannot be used inside the first year, so the earliest workable date to put in the notice is around the end of May 2027, which means serving at the end of January 2027. The restricted period then runs until late May 2028. That is sixteen months from the day you post the envelope during which you cannot re-let, licence for money, or advertise the property to let. Skip the notice and plead the ground straight in a claim form, and you get twelve months from the date the claim is filed instead.

You do not need to win for it to bite

The restriction is triggered by relying on the ground, not by succeeding on it. The Act says the prohibition continues “whether or not the tenancy continues”.

Read that twice. Serve Ground 1A, then think better of it. Serve it, and the tenant digs in. Serve it, and the judge is not convinced you genuinely intend to sell. In every one of those cases the tenant is still there, you have no possession, and you still cannot market the property to let for the rest of the period. In my view this is the most under-appreciated rule in the whole Act.

It gets worse. An invalid or informal notice counts too, and GOV.UK confirms that can include a text or WhatsApp message. A message saying “I am selling, you need to be out by Christmas” can start a restricted period on a property you then cannot re-let.

What is banned, and what is not

During the restricted period you cannot re-let, cannot let anyone occupy for money under a licence, and cannot advertise the property to let. Marketing is defined widely enough to catch an agent mentioning to an applicant that the property may be coming up. The portals are off the hook for hosting adverts supplied by others. You and your agent are not.

You can still do what the ground is for: market the property for sale, sell it, or grant a lease longer than twenty one years, and you can give your buyer a licence to move in ahead of completion. Family can move in rent free, because the ban only catches lettings and paid licences. But do not grant them a tenancy. The family letting exception belongs to Ground 1, the moving-in ground, not Ground 1A, whatever GOV.UK’s more generous summary suggests.

There is also an escape hatch almost nobody mentions. If the court later gives you possession on a different ground, the restriction ends that day. So if the tenant stays put, stops paying, and you get possession for serious arrears on Ground 8, the re-let bar drops away immediately.

Who pays, and how much

The rules bind you and anyone acting for you. Your letting agent is on the hook alongside you; your solicitor is not. Acting through an agent neither cures nor excuses a breach, and where the landlord is a company, directors can be personally liable, even for plain neglect in the case of the re-letting offence.

Re-letting or marketing during the period is a criminal offence, and the council can instead fine you up to £40,000. Lesser breaches run to £7,000. Serving a notice on a ground you know, or suspect, you cannot make out is a separate offence if the tenant then leaves within four months without a court order. And rent repayment orders now reach both offences, up to two years of rent. On a £1,400 a month property, that is £33,600 on top of whatever the council does.

One more thing. GOV.UK suggests a landlord who took “all reasonable steps” has a defence to re-letting. On the wording of the Act (section 16J(2)), that defence belongs only to someone other than the landlord, and only for marketing. As I read it, a landlord who re-lets has no reasonable steps defence at all. I would be glad to be told I am reading it too strictly, but that is how the words fall.

One correction worth making

I keep seeing it said that Ground 1A cannot be used for any tenancy that began before 1 May 2026. That is wrong. The carve-out in the transitional regulations (regulation 5 of SI 2026/421) only removes Ground 1A for the older style of assured tenancy that was never a shorthold. Ordinary ASTs converted on 1 May, and Ground 1A is available for them in the normal way.

The practical takeaway

Treat serving a Ground 1A notice as a decision to take that property off the lettings market for roughly sixteen months, whatever happens next. Instruct the estate agent and engage the conveyancer first. Do not serve to test the water.

And keep the file: the date of service, the date in the notice, the evidence you intended to sell at that date, and a record of what was and was not advertised. If a council comes asking in eighteen months, the paperwork is the whole defence.

A partnership with Property118

Property118 and LLCR have agreed a partnership for this community.

Property118 reader signup click here

Discount code: PROPERTY118, giving a 10% lifetime reduction on Starter and Pro plans, monthly or annual.

Two free tools that may help in the meantime, with no account needed: the compliance checker, and the Form 4A rent increase generator.

Have you served a Ground 1 or 1A notice yet, and did your agent flag the sixteen-month arithmetic before you did? I would be interested to hear whether anyone has had a council make contact about a restricted period, because I have not seen a reported case yet.

Tauhid Islam is a property law paralegal qualifying as a solicitor. He works on tenancy, possession, and compliance matters daily, and founded LLCR, Landlord Compliance Register, to give self-managing landlords and letting agents in England a single place to track every deadline, certificate, and document the law requires of them.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It describes the position in England. Always seek independent legal advice for your specific situation.