Redevelopment is an important part of the property ecosystem, so a Section 8 ground covering it has long been of interest to the possession regime. The changes brought about by the Renters’ Rights Act (RRA) have made Ground 6 considerably more useful to private landlords.
In this column, I want to take a closer look at Ground 6, which allows landlords to seek possession if they need to demolish or substantially reconstruct a property and cannot reasonably carry out the work with the tenant in situ.
This ground has some fairly technical requirements, as well as a much bigger practical issue.
The revised Ground 6 means landlords can now buy properties with tenants already in place and, in certain circumstances, seek possession to carry out substantial redevelopment. This is a significant change from the old rules, and one I’m excited to explore here.
“You can use this ground if you need to redevelop or demolish the property, and your tenant cannot live there whilst it is being demolished or redeveloped. Usually, you cannot evict someone on this basis in the first 6 months of the tenancy, but the exact requirements can vary.” - Grounds for possession: guidance for landlords and letting agents, Gov.uk
Broadly, Ground 6 applies where the landlord wants to demolish or substantially reconstruct the whole (or a large part) of their property. This also applies when they want to carry out substantial works on a larger building of which the property forms a part.
For leaseholding private landlords, there’s an important point here. The landlord seeking possession has to be the same landlord who intends to carry out the work. A superior landlord can’t issue a Ground 6 notice if they want to do the work.
Of course, the landlord serving the notice doesn’t have to personally pick up a hammer and start knocking down walls. Contractors can do the physical work, but the landlord has to drive it and be paying for it.
This is where I think Ground 6 becomes particularly interesting.
Under the pre-RRA version of Ground 6, restrictions limited when a landlord could acquire an interest in a property. In practical terms, a landlord couldn’t simply buy a property with a tenant already living there and then rely on Ground 6 to evict them based on redevelopment plans.
This restriction has now been removed.
That opens up a whole world of possibilities: a new legal route for landlords to identify underused, outdated, or inefficient properties, acquire them with the old tenants in place, and then seek possession to carry out a substantial renovation.
This doesn’t mean that every tenanted property in an agent’s portfolio is suddenly ripe for redevelopment.
The ground requirements must be met, and commercial questions remain about whether the purchase and redevelopment would be worth it in the long run.
I can imagine this being particularly relevant to older properties occupied by the same tenant for many years that have reached the point where significant work is required.
It may also be relevant to properties sold at auction with long-standing tenants in place.
Historically, those properties could be difficult to deal with because the buyer couldn't necessarily use Ground 6 to obtain vacant possession for redevelopment. The revised ground changes that position.
Now, there is a big difference between having an idea for redevelopment and having genuine intent to do so. This is a very important part of securing a successful Ground 6 repossession.
Ground 6 is not a ground that a landlord can simply use because they would prefer to have the property empty. Agents and landlords will need to demonstrate that the redevelopment (or demolition) plan is real and ready for implementation.
This means thinking about the practical evidence behind the proposal:
You need to consider whether planning permission has been obtained, or whether the application is sufficiently advanced that there is a realistic prospect of getting it.
And perhaps most importantly, you need to be able to demonstrate that the work genuinely requires the tenant to leave.
A surveyor will likely need to provide a report setting out the proposed works, their extent, and why the property cannot safely or reasonably be occupied while those works are being carried out.
If you turn up at court simply saying, "I want to redevelop this property", that's not going to be enough.
As I alluded to above, for Ground 6 to be used successfully, you must prove that the in situ tenant cannot remain at the property while redevelopment works are taking place.
Now, there is, of course, a chance that the tenant will argue that they can stay in the property while the work is carried out.
If the work is so substantial that the tenant cannot safely or reasonably remain, that is one thing. But if the proposed works could be completed while the tenant occupies a smaller part of the property, the position becomes more complicated.
In those circumstances, the landlord may need to consider whether the tenancy could be varied so that the tenant occupies a smaller area.
If the tenant refuses that proposal, Ground 6 may still become relevant. The more straightforward cases will be those where the redevelopment is so extensive that the tenant simply cannot remain in the property while the work is undertaken.
There is also a practical question about duration.
If you need the property empty for a weekend to carry out a small amount of work, it is difficult to see why possession should be necessary. The tenant could stay in a hotel at the landlord’s expense.
Where you're talking about substantial works taking six or seven weeks, the argument becomes much stronger.
There has never been a particularly neat rule saying exactly how long the works must last, so I would want to see a realistic programme of works and, where appropriate, supporting evidence from a surveyor.
The current Ground 6 is subject to several additional statutory conditions and a six-month restriction at the start of a tenancy, subject to limited exceptions. The notice period is four months.
You should now see how a Ground 6 possession order is a lot more complicated than it might initially seem. It can also quickly become expensive.
You need surveyors' reports, planning information, costings, and other evidence. Then there are legal fees and the time it takes to take a case through the courts.
By the time you've spent all that money trying to obtain possession, it may be worth asking whether you'd be better off spending some of it negotiating with the tenant.
That could mean agreeing to a payment in exchange for the tenant surrendering the tenancy.
I'm not saying that will always work. I've dealt with cases where tenants simply won't agree to leave.
But if the objective is to get the property vacant so that substantial redevelopment can begin, a negotiated surrender can sometimes be quicker and more commercially sensible than spending money on litigation.
Another aspect of Ground 6 could become increasingly important.
Consider minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES).
Some properties may require considerable work to bring them up to the required standard. In some cases, that work could be so extensive that the property cannot reasonably remain occupied while it takes place.
That potentially creates an interesting interaction between MEES improvements and Ground 6.
The same issue could arise with serious repair problems.
Imagine an improvement notice relating to damp. The only way to resolve the problem is to carry out substantial work to the property. That involves stripping back the plaster and work expected to take around 12 weeks.
The work cannot safely be carried out with the tenant in place.
In a situation like that, Ground 6 can provide a potential route to possession where substantial redevelopment or reconstruction is genuinely required.
That doesn't mean landlords should deliberately leave repairs until they can use Ground 6. Quite the opposite. But it does demonstrate why agents need to understand the interaction between possession law and the increasingly demanding requirements around the condition and energy performance of rented property.
For me, the policy choice behind the revised Ground 6 is what makes this ground so interesting.
The government has effectively made a policy choice to make it easier, in certain circumstances, for landlords to obtain possession in order to redevelop older property. That inevitably means there is a corresponding reduction in the protection previously available to some tenants.
The policy reasoning is fairly clear: if landlords can acquire older, inefficient, or underused properties and substantially improve or repurpose them, that redevelopment activity is less likely to be suppressed by the presence of an existing tenant.
This is particularly relevant in a market where there is a government desire to improve and make better use of existing housing stock.
It also means that agents need to understand that Ground 6 isn't simply a technical possession ground for landlords who already own a property. It changes the economics of acquiring some properties with tenants in place.
There will still be significant due diligence required. Planning, finance, construction costs, the property's condition, and the circumstances of the existing tenancy all need to be considered.
But the legal position has changed, and therein lies the opportunity.
Ground 6 is one of the more interesting changes to the possession regime because it sits at the intersection of tenant protection, redevelopment, and the condition of the UK's housing stock.
For landlords, the key lesson is that having a redevelopment plan isn't enough.
You need a genuine, settled intention to carry out the work, evidence you can fund it, appropriate planning considerations, and a clear explanation of why the tenant cannot remain while the work takes place.
For letting agents, that means understanding the evidence as much as understanding the ground itself.
And for anyone considering buying a property with a tenant already in place, Ground 6 is now part of the acquisition strategy.
The Renters' Rights Act has changed the balance here.
It has made it possible, in circumstances that were previously much more restricted, to acquire a property with a tenant in situ and then seek possession to carry out substantial redevelopment.
That is a significant change.
And I suspect we will see more landlords and investors thinking about what this means for the older, less efficiently used parts of the private rented sector.