Your tenant always pays. They just never pay on time. The rent lands on the 19th, then the 22nd, then the 11th, then the 27th. By the time you’ve chased it, it’s arrived, so there’s never a moment where formal action feels justified — and the cycle starts again.
Most landlords stop worrying once the money is in. That is the mistake. There is a possession ground built specifically for this pattern — Ground 11, persistent delay in paying rent — and it works even when the account is fully up to date. But it only works if you can prove the pattern, and proving a pattern means having recorded it as it happened.
This guide sets out exactly what to keep, in what form, and how the arrears grounds changed on 1 May 2026 under the Renters’ Rights Act.
Key takeaways
- Ground 11 is the reason to keep records. It covers persistent late payment regardless of whether anything is owed today.
- Ground 8 now needs three months’ arrears (13 weeks where rent is weekly or fortnightly) — up from two months — and four weeks’ notice.
- Grounds 10 and 11 are discretionary and also need four weeks’ notice. A judge decides whether possession is reasonable, which is precisely where your evidence earns its keep.
- Keep three things: a rent schedule, a communication log, and the underlying bank evidence.
- You can only charge for late rent once it is 14 days or more overdue, capped at 3% above the Bank of England base rate, and only if the tenancy agreement provides for it.
- Keep records for at least six years, in line with the Limitation Act 1980.
- If the deposit isn’t properly protected with prescribed information served, the court will refuse possession on these grounds anyway.
Why cleared arrears still matter
Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 sets out the grounds for possession. Three of them deal with rent, and they behave very differently.
| Ground | What it requires | Type | Notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground 8 | At least three months’ rent unpaid (13 weeks if weekly/fortnightly) at the date of notice and at the hearing | Mandatory | 4 weeks |
| Ground 10 | Some rent lawfully due and unpaid at the date of notice and at the hearing | Discretionary | 4 weeks |
| Ground 11 | Persistent delay in paying rent — whether or not anything is owed now | Discretionary | 4 weeks |
Ground 11 is the only one that survives a tenant clearing their account. A tenant who pays three weeks late every month for a year, but is square on the day of the hearing, defeats Grounds 8 and 10 entirely — and Ground 11 is what remains.
It is discretionary, which matters enormously. The judge is not simply checking a threshold; they are deciding whether it is reasonable to make a possession order, weighing your position against the tenant’s circumstances. A landlord who arrives with a clean, dated, twelve-month record of late payments and polite chasing looks very different from one who arrives with a grievance and a handful of screenshots.
What counts as “persistent”?
There is no statutory definition and no magic number. Courts look at the overall picture: how often payments were late, by how much, over how long, whether the tenant engaged when contacted, and whether it improved after you raised it.
A single bad quarter during a redundancy is not persistence. Twelve months of payments landing two to three weeks late, with repeated chasing and no sustained improvement, is a much stronger case. The thing you cannot do is establish this retrospectively — which is the entire argument for keeping records from the start.
The changes you need to know about
Since 1 May 2026, under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025:
- Section 21 is abolished. Every possession claim now needs a Section 8 ground on the prescribed form.
- Ground 8’s threshold rose from two months to three, and its notice period from two weeks to four.
- Where arrears exist only because a Universal Credit housing payment hasn’t yet reached the tenant, that amount is left out of the Ground 8 calculation.
- Deposit compliance now gates possession. If the deposit isn’t protected and prescribed information served, the court will not make an order under these grounds.
The practical effect is that the mandatory route got harder and slower, and the discretionary routes — where evidence quality decides the outcome — got more important. If your tenant is on Universal Credit, our guide to direct payments to landlords is worth reading alongside this.
The three records to keep
You need three things, and they work together. Any one on its own is weak.
1. The rent schedule
A single running table, one row per rent period, for the life of the tenancy. It is the backbone of any arrears claim and courts expect to see one.
Each row should record: the rent period, the date rent was due, the amount due, the date it actually arrived, the amount received, the payment method and reference, days late, and the running balance. Add a short notes column for anything unusual — a part payment, a bounced transfer, a promise to pay.
A spreadsheet is perfectly adequate; property software is faster and timestamps entries automatically. What matters is that it is maintained contemporaneously. A schedule reconstructed from memory the week before a hearing carries far less weight than one built month by month, and the difference is usually obvious.
2. The communication log
This is what turns a list of dates into a narrative. It shows you raised the issue, gave the tenant fair opportunity to fix it, and behaved reasonably throughout — the exact things a judge weighs when exercising discretion.
Log every contact about rent: date, time, method, who initiated it, what was said, and what was agreed. Keep the underlying material too — save emails to a dedicated folder, screenshot texts and WhatsApp messages, keep proof of postage for letters, and write up phone calls immediately afterwards while the detail is fresh. A note written the same day is credible; one written six months later is not.
Follow up significant phone conversations with a short confirming email: “Just to confirm what we discussed — you’ll pay the outstanding £850 by Friday.” That single habit converts an unverifiable call into documentary evidence.
3. The underlying evidence
Your schedule and log are documents you created, so they are only as persuasive as what sits behind them. Keep bank statements showing the credits and their value dates, the signed tenancy agreement identifying the due date and amount, any rent increase notices, guarantor paperwork, and copies of every notice served with proof of service.
Bank statements are the strongest evidence you have, because they are third-party records you can’t have edited. Where you redact other transactions, keep an unredacted copy — a court may ask.
Late payment charges: the rules you must not break
This is where well-meaning landlords create liability for themselves, so it’s worth being precise.
Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, you may charge for late rent only when all of the following are true:
- The rent is 14 days or more overdue. Not one day, not seven.
- The tenancy agreement expressly provides for the charge.
- The charge is interest, calculated daily, at no more than 3% above the Bank of England base rate, applied pro rata to the overdue amount.
With the base rate at 3.75% as at August 2026, the maximum you could charge is 6.75% annualised. On £1,000 overdue for 20 days that is roughly £3.70 — not a deterrent, and not a revenue stream. Interest may also only run from day one of the arrears once the 14-day threshold is passed; check your clause reflects that.
A flat “£25 late fee” applied the day after the due date is a prohibited payment. A first breach can attract a financial penalty of up to £5,000, repeat breaches can be a criminal offence, and any prohibited payment must be repaid. It will also do you no favours at a discretionary hearing.
The honest position is that charging interest is rarely worth the administration. The value in this area is the record, not the recovery.
A worked example
The following is an illustration of how the grounds interact, not a real case.
Rent is £1,200 a month, due on the 1st. Over fourteen months the tenant pays on the 16th, 22nd, 9th, 27th, 18th and so on — never more than one month behind, always eventually paid. In month fifteen they clear the account completely.
- Ground 8 fails — arrears never reached three months, and are nil at the hearing.
- Ground 10 fails — nothing is owed at the date of the hearing.
- Ground 11 is arguable — fourteen months of consistent delay is exactly the pattern it targets.
Whether the judge grants possession depends on what you can show: a contemporaneous schedule with fourteen dated rows, a log of a dozen polite chases, bank statements corroborating every entry, and evidence that you offered to discuss the difficulty. Without those, the same facts produce nothing.
How long to keep it all
The Limitation Act 1980 gives six years to bring a claim for a simple contract debt, so six years from the end of the tenancy is the working minimum for rent records. HMRC separately expects self-assessment records to be kept for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline, so a six-year rule comfortably covers both.
Keep it proportionate under UK GDPR. You are holding personal data with a legitimate interest in retaining it for that period — but not indefinitely. Store it securely, don’t keep more than you need, and delete it when the retention period ends.
Preventing the pattern in the first place
Evidence is a fallback. Most persistent lateness has a mundane cause, and mundane causes have fixes.
- Align the due date with payday. A tenant paid on the 28th will always struggle with rent due on the 1st. Moving the date solves more cases than chasing ever does.
- Insist on a standing order set two or three days before the due date, and check it exists rather than assuming.
- Send a reminder before the due date, not after. It reframes chasing as a service and generates a dated record either way.
- Ask early what’s going on. A tenant three weeks late every month usually has a budgeting or benefit-timing problem they’d happily explain.
- Reference thoroughly and use guarantors where affordability is tight — see our tenant referencing guide and what to do when a guarantor fails.
For the wider process once arrears build, see managing rent arrears and best practices for collecting rent.
Common mistakes
- Stopping the record once the money arrives. The cleared payment is exactly what Ground 11 is about.
- Reconstructing the schedule before a hearing. Obvious to a judge and far less persuasive.
- Managing rent by phone. If it isn’t written down it effectively didn’t happen.
- Charging a flat late fee. Unlawful, and it undermines you at a discretionary hearing.
- Assuming three months’ arrears is still two. The Ground 8 threshold changed in May 2026.
- Forgetting the deposit. Unprotected deposit, no possession order — however good your evidence.
- Letting the tone slip. Your messages will be read out in court. Write them accordingly.
What to do next
Open a spreadsheet today and build a rent schedule for every tenancy you hold, back-filled from your bank statements as far as you reliably can. Create one folder per property for correspondence. Then add a five-minute monthly habit: record the payment, note anything unusual, file any messages.
Most of the time it will sit unused. On the one occasion a tenancy goes wrong, it is the difference between a possession claim that succeeds and one that never gets off the ground.
Frequently asked questions
Can I take action if the tenant always pays eventually?
Yes — Ground 11 covers persistent delay in paying rent regardless of whether anything is currently owed. It is discretionary, so the court decides whether possession is reasonable, and your documented history of the pattern is what the decision turns on.
How much rent must be outstanding for Ground 8?
Since 1 May 2026, at least three months’ rent (or 13 weeks where rent is paid weekly or fortnightly), both when the notice is served and at the hearing. Unpaid Universal Credit housing element that hasn’t reached the tenant is excluded from the calculation.
What notice period applies to rent arrears grounds?
Four weeks for Grounds 8, 10 and 11. This increased from two weeks under the Renters’ Rights Act. Issuing proceedings before the notice period expires risks the claim being struck out.
Can I charge a late payment fee?
Only once the rent is at least 14 days overdue, only if the tenancy agreement provides for it, and only as daily interest capped at 3% above the Bank of England base rate. A flat fee charged immediately after the due date is a prohibited payment under the Tenant Fees Act 2019.
Are text messages and WhatsApp valid evidence?
Yes. Screenshot them showing the date, time and sender, back them up, and log them in your communication record. Follow up important phone calls with a confirming email so the substance exists in writing.
How long should I keep rent records?
At least six years from the end of the tenancy, matching the Limitation Act 1980 period for contract debts. That also covers HMRC’s expectations for self-assessment records.
Does the deposit affect a rent arrears claim?
Yes, and this changed in 2026. If the deposit isn’t protected in an authorised scheme with prescribed information served, the court will refuse possession under these grounds. Check your protection before serving anything.
Written by the Landlords Portal team — experienced UK landlords covering the private rented sector in England. This article is general information, not legal advice. Possession procedure is technical and errors are costly; take advice before serving notice.
