Tenant has stopped paying rent: what to do in the first 30 days

Tenant has stopped paying rent: what to do in the first 30 days

Confirm the payment has genuinely been missed, contact the tenant in writing within the first week, and establish whether a Universal Credit delay is the cause. Ground 8 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 requires three months' arrears in England, so the first 30 days are for evidence and communication rather than notices.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Landlords should seek independent legal advice for their specific circumstances. It describes the position in England.

Why the first 30 days are not a possession window

No possession route is available to a landlord in England within 30 days of a first missed rent payment on the mandatory arrears ground. Since 1 May 2026, Ground 8 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 has required at least three months' rent unpaid where rent is payable monthly, raised from two months by the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

That does not make the first month passive. A discretionary ground is technically available from the first missed payment, but discretionary means the court decides whether possession is reasonable, and the answer depends heavily on what the landlord did in the early weeks. The first 30 days are where the evidence for any later claim is either created or lost.

Days 1 to 7: verify before you act

Check that the payment has genuinely failed before contacting the tenant. Standing orders fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the tenant's intention: a changed bank account, a payment date falling on a weekend, a bank system outage, or a partial payment landing separately.

Confirm three things against your own records:

• The exact amount due under the tenancy and the contractual due date
• Whether any payment was received in the days either side
• Whether the account was fully clear immediately before this

If the tenant is in credit from earlier overpayments, the arrears figure is lower than the missed payment. Getting that number wrong in a first letter undermines everything that follows.

Days 7 to 14: make contact and put it in writing

Contact the tenant as soon as the missed payment is confirmed, and follow any call with a written message. A short, factual message is more useful later than a formal letter, because it establishes the date the tenant was told and gives them the opportunity to explain.

Keep it to the facts: the amount outstanding, the date it was due, a request that they contact you, and an offer to discuss if there is a difficulty. Avoid any threat of eviction at this stage. There is no lawful basis for one, and a court considering reasonableness on a discretionary ground will read the whole correspondence trail.

Never change the locks, remove belongings, cut off a utility, or enter without the tenant's agreement. Doing so risks an offence under section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, for which local authorities can now impose a civil penalty of up to £40,000 as an alternative to prosecution under section 1A, inserted by the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

What you are allowed to charge

The Tenant Fees Act 2019 restricts what a landlord in England can charge when rent is late, and the limits are narrow.

Under Schedule 1 paragraph 4 of the Act, a default payment for late rent only becomes permissible where the tenant has failed to pay in full before the end of the 14 day period beginning with the due date. Charging more than the prescribed amount makes the excess a prohibited payment, recoverable by the tenant.

In practice the sums involved are small. On £1,200 of unpaid rent with a base rate of 4%, the maximum daily interest is roughly 23 pence. Interest is a compliance question rather than a recovery tool.

Days 14 to 21: establish the cause

Find out why the rent has stopped, because the answer changes what you should do next. Three causes account for most cases and each has a different route.

A benefits delay. Where the tenant receives the housing element of Universal Credit, arrears that exist only because that payment has not yet arrived are expressly disregarded when calculating whether the Ground 8 threshold is met. That provision was inserted into Ground 8 by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and took effect on 1 May 2026. A tenant in this position may also be able to request that the housing element is paid directly to the landlord through an alternative payment arrangement, which can resolve the problem without any notice at all.

A temporary income shock. Job loss, reduced hours, illness or a relationship breakdown usually produces arrears that a structured payment plan can clear. Courts assessing reasonableness on discretionary grounds routinely consider whether the landlord offered a realistic arrangement.

A refusal to pay, or a dispute. Where a tenant is withholding rent over an unresolved repair, the arrears and the disrepair will end up being heard together, because a disrepair claim can be raised as a counterclaim in a possession claim based on arrears. A landlord whose repair record is poor is in a materially weaker position on any discretionary ground.

If a Breathing Space moratorium starts

Stop all recovery activity immediately if you receive notification that your tenant has entered a moratorium under the Debt Respite Scheme. Rent arrears are a qualifying debt, and you will be notified through the Insolvency Service rather than by the tenant.

A standard breathing space runs for up to 60 days. A mental health crisis moratorium lasts for the duration of the tenant's crisis treatment plus a further 30 days. During a moratorium, creditors are generally prevented from taking enforcement action in respect of the moratorium debt, from contacting the debtor about it, and from adding interest or charges to it.

Rent that falls due during the moratorium is not itself a moratorium debt, and the tenant is expected to keep paying it. The Insolvency Service publishes guidance for creditors, and landlords are advised to read it rather than rely on general summaries, because the boundaries of what is permitted during a moratorium are set by regulations and are easy to get wrong.

Days 21 to 30: payment plan or notice

Decide by the end of the first month whether you are working towards a payment plan or towards a notice, and record the reasoning either way.

A payment plan is worth putting in writing even when it is informal. Set out the arrears balance, the ongoing rent, the additional amount per period, and the date the arrears will clear. A plan that the tenant cannot afford tends to fail within two months and wastes the time it took to agree. A plan the tenant honours resolves the matter without a claim, and a plan the tenant breaks is itself useful evidence.

If a notice is likely, the arrears grounds work as follows.

Two features of Ground 8 drive practice. The threshold must be met on the notice date and on the hearing date, so a tenant who pays the balance below three months' rent before the hearing defeats it. And "rent" means rent lawfully due from the tenant, which means an invalid rent increase does not count towards the total. Landlords who intend to rely on Ground 8 commonly plead Grounds 10 and 11 alongside it so that the claim survives a part payment. The full picture of which grounds apply and when is covered separately, as is the Form 3A notice itself.

Check your own compliance before you serve anything

Verify your compliance position during the first 30 days, not at the point of serving a notice. Section 26 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 replaced section 215 of the Housing Act 2004 so that, where a deposit has been paid in connection with an assured tenancy, the court's power to make a possession order is conditioned on the deposit being held in an authorised scheme and the scheme's requirements having been met, with an exception for the antisocial behaviour grounds. Published commentary differs on the precise treatment of prescribed information under the amended wording, so landlords are advised to take advice on the position for their tenancy rather than assume. Our deposit protection guide sets out the underlying obligations.

Beyond the deposit, a tenant defending an arrears claim will examine every part of the tenancy file. The routes a tenant can take are set out in our article on defences to Section 8 possession claims, and the drafting errors that sink a notice before it is read are covered in what invalidates a Section 8 notice. There is currently no pre-action protocol for rent arrears possession claims that binds private landlords in England, but the general Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols applies, and a landlord's conduct is directly relevant to reasonableness on a discretionary ground.

What to keep from the first 30 days

Keep a dated record of six things, because they are what a claim is built from:

• Every rent payment received, with the date and amount, and the running balance
• The date each payment fell due under the tenancy
• Every contact with the tenant about the arrears, with the date and the method
• Any explanation the tenant gave
• Any payment plan proposed or agreed, and whether it was kept
• Any benefits information the tenant provided

A possession claim on an arrears ground stands on a rent account that reconciles. If your ledger and the tenant's bank statements disagree, the court works from the evidence, not the assertion. A record assembled from memory three months later is the most common reason an otherwise straightforward claim runs into difficulty.

If a rent account ever has to be produced for a court, the useful version is one that already reconciles. LLCR tracks payments against due dates and exports a Court-Ready Rent Ledger PDF with the particulars of arrears set out.