Four stories today, all pointing at the same thing: the private rented sector is restructuring itself faster than the institutions around it can keep up. New Ministry of Justice figures show possession claims taking the longest they have in twenty years outside the pandemic, fresh market data has company ownership creeping past private ownership at the top end of buy-to-let, and separate research shows landlords leaning harder on guarantors now that rent-in-advance is banned. Add a decade-old leasehold grievance still waiting on Downing Street, and the picture is a sector adapting in months to rules the machinery around it takes years to catch up with.
Possession claims now take longer than at any point in twenty years
A Nottingham landlord’s possession order, reported today by Property118, sat with the court for two weeks after being granted before his solicitor was even notified — the order was dated six days after the tenant’s required departure date, and the whole process from instruction to enforcement ran to six months. The case is an anecdote, but the Ministry of Justice figures sitting behind it are not: 91,093 landlord possession claims were issued in 2025, and the median time from claim to repossession reached 27 weeks, the longest wait in over twenty years outside the pandemic period. “What a fallacy this UK court system is,” the landlord, Mick Roberts, is quoted as saying. “If the government can’t get this simple procedure right, what hope is there?”
This matters more than it would have eighteen months ago because the whole logic of the Renters’ Rights Act rests on the courts as backstop. Section 21 is gone; a landlord who needs a property back now must use one of the Act’s specified grounds and go through the county court if the tenant won’t leave voluntarily. That was always going to push more cases through a system already slowing down before the Act commenced in May. A possession route taking half a year is not really a safety valve; it’s a queue, and landlords are starting to notice.
If you’re a landlord who may need possession this year, start the paperwork the day you decide, not the day you need it — get the grounds notice right first time, because a rejected or defective notice at week one costs you a full re-run of a process now averaging half a year. If you’re a tenant, the same slowness cuts both ways: a landlord who has decided to sell or move in is not going to be moved by a slow court, they’ll simply wait it out, so early conversation is worth more than brinkmanship.
Company ownership is now the default for serious landlords, not the exception
Lendlord’s Q3 2026 UK buy-to-let market report, covered today by Property118, puts company ownership at 45.1 per cent of the buy-to-let market against 54.9 per cent held privately — and the split flips hard by portfolio size. Landlords with one to three properties are still 67.1 per cent privately owned, but company ownership overtakes private ownership once a portfolio reaches eleven to twenty properties, and among landlords with twenty or more it reaches 57.6 per cent. “45.1% of BTL ownership is already sitting in a company, and among larger portfolios it is the majority model,” Lendlord co-founder and chief executive Aviram Shahar said.
None of this is new in direction — incorporation has been the sensible move for higher-rate taxpayers since mortgage interest relief was restricted — but the scale is worth pausing on. A market where most larger portfolios sit inside limited companies behaves differently: refinancing, sale and succession run through corporate structures with their own accountants, timelines and, often, more appetite for compliance spend an individual landlord might defer. If you’re surveying a property held in a portfolio company, expect the paper trail on past works to be better kept, and the decision-maker to be a step removed from whoever lives nearby.
If you’re a smaller landlord still holding privately and wondering whether to incorporate, run the sums on your specific tax position rather than following the trend — the capital gains and stamp duty cost of moving existing property into a company is real money now for a saving that only compounds over years. If you manage or survey for portfolio landlords, get used to dealing with a finance team rather than an owner-occupier mindset on repair decisions.
The rent-in-advance ban is pushing landlords back onto guarantors
LRG’s Summer 2026 Lettings Report, surveying 717 landlords and 860 tenants and covered today by Property118, found 54 per cent of landlords now more likely to request a guarantor from applicants who don’t comfortably clear standard affordability checks — a direct consequence, the report suggests, of the Renters’ Rights Act ending landlords’ ability to ask for more than one month’s rent up front. On the tenant side the gap is stark: 51 per cent of tenants without a personal guarantor said they’d simply look for a cheaper property, 16 per cent said they’d give up the search altogether, and 74 per cent had never heard of professional guarantor services that could stand in for a family member. “Landlords need confidence that a tenancy is affordable and sustainable, particularly now that rent in advance is no longer available as an additional safeguard,” said Allison Thompson, chief lettings officer at Leaders, part of LRG.
This is the Renters’ Rights Act working as intended in one sense and creating a new problem in another. Banning large rent-in-advance payments closes off a route that was pricing out tenants who couldn’t front several months’ rent at once. But if the replacement safeguard is a guarantor, and three-quarters of tenants don’t know a paid guarantor service can stand in when family can’t, the same tenants priced out before are now stuck without a guarantor and without knowing there’s a way round it. The rule moved the obstacle; it didn’t remove it.
If you’re a tenant without a guarantor, ask the agent or landlord directly whether a paid guarantor service or rent guarantee insurance would satisfy their referencing — more than a third of landlords in this survey already hold that insurance, so the option may exist even if it’s never offered upfront. If you’re a landlord tightening guarantor requirements, make sure your referencing criteria are applied consistently and documented, given how closely affordability and referencing decisions are now scrutinised under the wider Act.
Leaseholders are still waiting on a ground rent cap the government promised years ago
The National Leasehold Campaign, which says it represents more than 35,000 leaseholders, has written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham urging an immediate £250 ground rent cap rather than waiting for the government’s planned 2028 implementation, as Property118 reports. NLC co-founder Katie Kendrick OBE argued that “for many households, an immediate £250 ground rent cap would save more than the annual savings currently being highlighted through plug-in solar,” and the letter, sent last week, points out that leaseholders are already carrying mortgages, service charges, insurance and a growing list of administration fees on top of ground rent that serves no practical purpose for them.
The frustration here is less about the sum — £250 a year won’t transform anyone’s finances — and more about the gap between a reform announced and a reform taking effect. Campaigners have pushed this issue for well over a decade; a cap already committed to in principle but sitting on a 2028 timeline, with no legislative obstacle beyond drafting time, is the kind of delay that erodes trust in every other promised reform in the pipeline, including leasehold abolition itself.
If you’re buying a leasehold flat now, don’t price in the ground rent cap as if it’s already law — get the current ground rent, review terms and any doubling clause from the lease itself, and treat 2028 as the earliest realistic date it changes. If you’re a leaseholder already paying an escalating or onerous ground rent, a lease extension or enfranchisement claim under the existing rules may be worth pricing up now rather than waiting for a cap that keeps slipping.
What I’d actually do
- Need possession this year? Get the grounds notice right first time — a defective notice now costs a full re-run of a process averaging 27 weeks.
- Weighing incorporation as a smaller landlord? Run your own capital gains and stamp duty numbers before following the trend; the cost of moving existing property into a company is immediate, the saving is not.
- Tenant without a guarantor? Ask specifically about paid guarantor services or rent guarantee insurance before assuming you’re priced out.
- Buying a leasehold flat? Price the ground rent as it stands today, not against a 2028 cap that keeps slipping.
- Landlord tightening referencing? Apply and document guarantor and affordability criteria consistently — it’s now under closer scrutiny.
Today’s notes touch buy-to-let structure and leasehold terms as much as bricks and mortar — the practice covers full building surveys and Buy to Let Surveys across the South East for landlords weighing exactly these decisions. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 7 September 2026.