- Foxgate & Sterling · 18-branch West/South-West London letting agency. Established 1992.
- Your role · Senior Lettings Negotiator, Hammersmith. Reports to Charlotte Eames.
- Today · Friday 8 May 2026. Day 8 of the post-RRA regime. Section 21 was abolished last week.
- The trap · Tuesday's all-hands led with Ground 1A. The first instruction today is not a Ground 1A case.
"Last week we'd have served Section 21. This week we have to think."
"I want the property back. The Hammersmith one. Tomas — my son — he's finishing his postgrad in September and he wants to move in. He's been renting in Camden and the landlord's selling, and I thought, well, I have a flat sitting there with two perfectly nice people in it, but my own son. He's twenty-nine. He needs a home."
"I read about the new law in The Times last weekend. Four months, my solicitor friend said. I want it done by September so Tomas can move in straight from his course. And — look, if Tomas changes his mind, if he gets a graduate job that takes him to Manchester, I might just sell instead. The market's not bad. But the point is I want the flat back. One way or another."
Mum,
Thinking about it more, the Hammersmith flat would be perfect. I finish in September and the Camden lease is up at the end of October either way. If you can get it back I'd love to move in and make it my place properly — would be home for at least a few years.
I know it's complicated with the tenants. Let me know what the agent says.
T x
Henrietta has stopped talking. The folder is open on the table. You have read Tomas's letter twice. You need to tell her what ground the agency is going to advise her to use — that conversation will set the entire course of the next four months.
Charlotte stops by your desk. "Heard you talking through Hammersmith Court. The trap on this floor this week is going to be Ground 1A — same notice period, headline reform, everyone's been thinking about sale-cases. But this isn't a sale case. Henrietta said she might sell if Tomas changes his mind. The ground attaches to the actual stated intent at moment of service, not the contingency."
"Build the Ground 1 evidence. Tomas's signed statement. Family relationship documented — birth certificates. Henrietta's witness statement. Then we draft. Saskia at HQ wants to sign off on every Section 8 notice in the first six months, so we'll loop her in before you serve."
Both grounds: 4 months' notice. Both grounds: tenancy must have run 12 months. Ground 1 is for landlord-or-family-occupation; Ground 1A is for sale.
The grounds are not interchangeable. Ground 1A imposes a 12-month no-relet restriction post-notice that Ground 1 does not. Citing Ground 1A on a family-occupation case fabricates an intention the landlord does not have, and exposes the landlord to a £40,000 civil penalty if the property is later let.
Charlotte stops by your desk. "She said her son is moving in. She mentioned sale as a contingency — 'if Tomas changes his mind' — but the primary instruction is family occupation. That's Ground 1, not 1A."
"I'd been worried about exactly this trap on the floor this week. Same notice period, the briefing on Tuesday led with 1A because that's the headline reform, and now everyone's pattern-matching the 4-month notice to 1A. But the ground attaches to the stated primary intent. Pick 1A and you've also just told Henrietta she can't re-let for 12 months without a £40,000 penalty if Tomas does end up moving in. Reset. Ground 1. Build the evidence."
Ground 1 and Ground 1A share the 4-month notice and the 12-month tenancy minimum. They are otherwise distinct.
Ground 1A imposes a 12-month no-relet restriction post-notice with civil penalties up to £40,000. Ground 1 does not. Mis-citation in the first weeks of the post-RRA regime is the most-flagged error in ARLA Propertymark's compliance briefings.
Charlotte stops by your desk. "Ground 8 is rent arrears. Daniel and Ana have paid every month for four years. There are no arrears. Citing Ground 8 when the rent ledger is clean is an abuse-of-process flag at the tribunal — and a complaint to ARLA waiting to happen."
"The case is Ground 1. Family occupation. Tomas is moving in. Reset and build the Ground 1 evidence."
Schedule 2 grounds must be made out on the facts. A notice that cites a ground without supporting evidence is struck out at the tribunal's first review. Repeated mis-citation is an ARLA complaint matter.
Charlotte stops by your desk. "We're not building a Ground 14 case out of nothing. Henrietta hasn't said anything that gets us to anti-social behaviour — there is no complaint record, no police contact, no neighbour report. 'Difficult' is not nuisance. We don't manufacture statutory facts to fit a client's preferred timeline."
"The case is Ground 1. Family occupation. That's the conversation we're having. Reset."
Ground 14 is discretionary and evidence-led. The court considers tenant cooperation, impact on other occupants, and documented complaints. A landlord's statement that a tenant is 'difficult' is not statutory fact.
Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 (as amended) · pick the supportable ground.
The Foxgate case-management system shows you the post-RRA Schedule 2 ground panel. Click each ground you wish to cite on the notice. Each ground is tested by the tribunal against the facts in Henrietta's file. Pick the wrong ground and the notice dies at first review; cite multiple grounds and discretionary grounds that cannot be made out drag down the credibility of the whole notice. False-positive penalty applies for each unsupported discretionary ground.
Schedule 2 · Ground pool
Cite on the notice
"Selection's in. Move to the notice."
Henrietta is back on the phone, asking for the timeline. Ground 1 requires 4 months' notice. If you serve by next Friday (15 May), the earliest possession date is mid-September — exactly what she wants. But there are options.
Clean post-RRA timeline. Service next Friday gives 4 months' notice expiring on or around 15 September, period-aligned to the tenancy month. Henrietta keeps her September window. The notice goes through HQ legal sign-off before service. The tribunal hearing slot will be the week after the notice expires — a standard post-RRA listing pattern.
Charlotte DMs you on Teams: "Good call. Saskia has Monday morning blocked for the draft review. Send it over Sunday evening."
Ground 1 requires a minimum 4 months' notice. The notice can run longer — there is no maximum — but it cannot run shorter. The effective date must also be aligned to the end of a tenancy period (typically the rental month-end).
"Wouldn't that just give them time to dig in?" Henrietta is right to push back. A pre-warning is procedurally well-meaning but creates an evidence trail that a tenants' solicitor can use to argue the landlord was uncertain about the ground or hesitant about the case. Section 8 notices are served clean — the prescribed Form 6A warning is itself the statutory notice to the tenant, with signposts to Citizens Advice, Shelter, and the Ombudsman.
Charlotte resets to clean service. The pre-warn idea is dropped before it leaves the branch. Notice Admissibility takes a small hit but the case is recoverable.
Form 6A contains a prescribed statutory warning to the tenant in plain English with signposts to Citizens Advice, Shelter, and the Housing Ombudsman. That warning is the formal notification.
"Two months? But then we're into mid-July before you even serve — that takes Tomas's move-in to November. He's signed a lease in Camden through October on the assumption the Hammersmith flat will be ready."
Charlotte intervenes via DM and offers the next-Friday timeline. The notice will still be drafted and served, but the client relationship is damaged. Foxgate may lose the eventual sale phase to a competitor.
Statutory caution is the law's job; procedural caution beyond the law is a commercial choice. A Ground 1 case that meets the evidential threshold today does not become stronger by waiting two months — and the client may not wait.
Five parameters. Each has one right answer.
Standard Section 8 review. The 1A trap is what I'm watching for everywhere this month — confirm Ground 1 cited as primary, particulars name the family member and the family relationship, and the warning is in the prescribed form not your own words. Send the draft for sign-off when you're done. SM.
You have selected Ground 1. The Notice Composer asks you to fix five parameters that together make the Form 6A notice tribunal-admissible. Each parameter has three or four options. Get all five correct and the notice is clean. One error = technically defective (notice survives initial review but dies on tenant challenge at tribunal). Two or more errors = grossly defective (notice dies at tribunal's first review, possession refused regardless of evidence bundle quality).
The process server rang the ground-floor bell at 18:42. Daniel opened the door — just home from work, still in his jacket, Ana in the hallway behind him with a takeaway bag. Daniel signed the proof-of-service certificate. He read the front page on the doorstep. Ana asked what it was. He said: "It's a Section 8."
By Sunday afternoon Daniel had emailed three legal-aid solicitors. By Monday morning James Whitehead had rung him back and offered a same-day consultation. By Wednesday, James filed for a copy of the notice, the original tenancy agreement, the rent ledger, and any agency communications relating to the instruction.
"I've read the notice three times. I want to know two things before we file the response. One — do the particulars name the family member, evidence the family relationship, and assert principal-home occupation. Two — is the prescribed warning in the form the regulations require, or did the agency write it themselves. If both are clean, the case will turn on the evidence bundle. If either is sloppy, we have a procedural defence."
Twelve documents. Four bundles. Filing deadline 16:00.
Four months later. The notice expired yesterday. Hearing Thursday at the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber. File each evidence item in its correct bundle, or mark as NOT FILED if it is not relevant to a Ground 1 case. Asymmetric scoring: missing a critical item is the load-bearing failure mode (notice deemed not properly served, OR Ground 1 not made out). Wrong-bundle critical = judge's annoyance. Over-bundling decoy = process penalty.
Hearing Room 3, ground floor of the Hammersmith County Court Building. The bench is up by three steps; the witness box is to the bench's left; the public gallery has six chairs and two are taken by ARLA Propertymark observers — the post-RRA tribunal listings have become a regional learning resource.
Henrietta sits at the applicants' table next to you. Daniel sits at the respondents' table next to James Whitehead. Ana is in the public gallery; she has a paperback in her lap she has not opened. Judge Hoult takes the bench at 10:03 and asks for the bundle. The clerk hands up four lever-arch files in order.
The judge spends seven minutes reading the notice, the service proof, and Tomas's intent letter. She does not look up. James is making notes on a yellow legal pad. Daniel is staring at the carpet between his feet. At 10:11 the judge looks up.
Possession granted in 14 days.
"James opened with two procedural challenges and ran through the genuine-intention test. Both failed in your favour. By 11:18 Judge Hoult had read the operative ruling. Each side bears its own costs."
What made this work
- Section 21 is gone. Under the post-RRA regime the letting agent's first job is picking the correct Section 8 ground and drafting a Form 6A notice that survives tribunal review.
- Ground 1 (family occupation) and Ground 1A (sale) share the 4-month notice and the 12-month tenancy floor but are otherwise distinct. Ground 1A imposes a 12-month no-relet criminal restriction that Ground 1 does not. Mis-citation is the most common Section 8 error in the first weeks of the new regime.
- Particulars are mandatory and load-bearing. "The landlord requires the property for a family member" is too vague; the particulars must name the family member, evidence the relationship, and assert principal-home occupation.
- The evidence bundle is the second admissibility check. Missing the service-proof or the Ground 1 genuine-intention evidence will refuse the case even if the notice itself is clean.
Four months later
Procedural craft is the protection. Daniel and Ana lost a home they liked, but the procedure ensured they had four months' notice, the right to seek advice, the right to contest, and the right to be heard. The agency's job is to operate that procedure correctly — not to soften it for the client or sharpen it against the tenant.
Possession granted — with costs against the agency.
"The notice survives the procedural challenges, but the bundle has gaps and the particulars have soft edges that James spent the morning probing. Possession ordered, costs against the agency."
What this teaches
- A notice that is admissible on its face can still attract a costs order if the surrounding bundle has gaps. The tribunal reads the notice and the file.
- Procedural sloppiness — vague particulars, missing decoy evidence over-filed, soft service-proof — does not always kill a case but it always costs the firm.
- The Ground 1 evidence test is genuine intention. The minimum the tribunal looks for: signed letter from the named occupant, family-relationship proof, landlord's witness statement. Absent any one of these, the case weakens by a step.
Four months later
Possession refused. Costs against the landlord.
"James opened with the procedural challenges and the case did not survive them. Wrong ground, defective particulars, missing service proof, or missing Ground 1 genuine-intention evidence — any one was enough at first review."
What this teaches
- The notice is the single document the tribunal reads first and reads most carefully. Wrong ground, wrong notice period, defective particulars, missing prescribed warning — any one kills the notice at first review.
- Under the pre-RRA Section 21 regime a letting agent could draft a notice in twenty minutes. Under the post-RRA Section 8 regime that is no longer the time-budget. The professional work moved from the courtroom to the desk.
- The Ground 1A trap is the most expensive mistake on a family-occupation case. Same notice period, completely different evidential demands, locks the landlord into a 12-month no-relet criminal restriction with civil penalty up to £40,000.