You do an inspection and the lawn is knee-high, the borders have vanished under bindweed, and there’s a rusting barbecue where the patio used to be. Your tenant says the garden is your job. You assumed it was theirs. Who’s right?
The honest answer surprises most landlords: almost no statute makes garden maintenance anyone’s legal duty. There is no Garden Act. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 — the repairing obligation landlords usually reach for — does not cover the garden. Which means the question is settled almost entirely by what your tenancy agreement says, and most tenancy agreements say it badly.
This guide sets out where the legal line actually falls, what you can reasonably ask a tenant to do, the specialist jobs that stay with you no matter what the agreement says, and how to enforce a garden clause now that Section 21 has gone.
Key takeaways
- Section 11 doesn’t cover gardens. It covers the structure and exterior of the dwelling itself, plus installations. Lawns, borders, fences and paths generally sit outside it.
- Your tenancy agreement is doing all the work. A vague clause like “keep the garden tidy” is close to unenforceable.
- Tenants can fairly be asked to handle routine upkeep — mowing, weeding, light pruning, keeping paths clear.
- Trees, high hedges, Japanese knotweed, structural walls and unsafe decking stay with you regardless of what the clause says.
- You cannot charge a separate “garden maintenance fee” under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. Build it into the rent instead.
- Since Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026, you can no longer quietly end a tenancy over a neglected garden.
- Deposit deductions for a ruined garden need a dated check-in record proving what it looked like on day one.
The legal position: quieter than you’d expect
Landlords often assume there is a statutory answer here. There isn’t much of one.
What Section 11 actually covers
Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires you to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house — including drains, gutters and external pipes — and to keep the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation and heating in working order. It is implied into virtually every residential tenancy and cannot be contracted out of.
What it does not say is anything about gardens. The courts have taken a narrow view of “structure and exterior”: a path lying wholly outside the main building has been held not to form part of it, and the fact that it provided access made no difference. On that reasoning, lawns, flower beds, hedges, sheds and boundary fences generally fall outside Section 11 altogether — unless your own agreement brings them in.
The repairs you are legally required to make are therefore narrower outdoors than most landlords assume — and the practical burden lands on drafting.
Where the law does reach outside
Three routes bring the outside space back into play:
- Fitness for habitation. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 requires the property to be fit to live in. A garden problem bites here only if it makes the dwelling unfit — a collapsing retaining wall threatening the building, say, or drainage that floods the ground floor.
- Occupiers’ liability and negligence. If you retain control of something dangerous — a diseased tree, rotten decking, an unstable wall — you can be liable when it injures someone. This does not transfer to the tenant just because a clause says “tenant maintains the garden”.
- Local authority enforcement. Under section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, a council can serve notice on the owner and occupier where the condition of land adversely affects the amenity of the area. A genuinely derelict garden can attract one.
Worth noting for the medium term: the Decent Homes Standard is expected to apply to the private rented sector from 2035, and the extension of Awaab’s Law to private landlords sits in a later implementation phase with no firm date confirmed. Neither is a garden rule as such, but both point towards tighter condition standards. Treat these as in flux rather than settled.
Usually the tenant
✓ Mowing the lawn
✓ Weeding beds and borders
✓ Light pruning of shrubs
✓ Clearing leaves and litter
✓ Keeping paths clear and safe
Always the landlord
✓ Tree surgery and dangerous trees
✓ Boundary walls and structures
✓ Japanese knotweed
✓ Decking and patio safety
✓ Drainage and flooding
Agree it in writing
• Hedge trimming and height
• Who provides the mower
• Green waste disposal
• Ponds and water features
• Any planting or alterations
What you can reasonably ask a tenant to do
The governing principle is that a tenant can be asked to maintain a garden in the condition they received it, not to improve it and not to take on skilled work.
Reasonable asks: cutting the grass during the growing season, keeping beds free of serious weed growth, trimming shrubs within easy reach, sweeping paths, clearing leaves, disposing of their own green waste, and reporting problems like a leaning fence panel or a dead tree.
Unreasonable asks: pruning mature trees, cutting a three-metre hedge, treating invasive species, repairing structures, replacing plants that die naturally, or returning a garden in better condition than they found it. A clause requiring any of these is likely to be treated as unfair and won’t help you at deposit adjudication.
One practical point: if the property has a large or demanding garden and you want it kept to a standard, expecting an average tenant to deliver that for free is optimistic. Either simplify the garden or pay a gardener.
The five jobs that catch landlords out
1. Trees — and the ones you’re not allowed to touch
Tree work is yours. It needs equipment, insurance and competence a tenant won’t have, and a falling limb is your liability.
Before instructing anyone, check whether the tree carries a Tree Preservation Order or sits in a conservation area. Both require you to apply to the council before pruning or felling, and working without consent can attract a substantial fine. A tenant who “helpfully” takes a saw to a protected tree creates a problem that lands on you as the owner — which is a good reason to prohibit tree work in the agreement explicitly.
2. High hedges and the two-metre rule
Under Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, a neighbour can complain to the council about a “high hedge” — a barrier formed wholly or predominantly by a line of two or more evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs, rising more than two metres above ground level, that unreasonably affects their enjoyment of their property.
The council can serve a remedial notice, and it cannot require the hedge to go below two metres. Two things matter for you: the complaint has to be made against the owner or occupier, and the council will normally expect the neighbours to have tried to resolve it amicably first. If your tenant is receiving complaints about a hedge, deal with it — our guide to neighbour complaints about tenants covers the wider process.
3. Japanese knotweed
Having knotweed is not itself illegal, but responsibility for controlling it sits with the landowner — you. It is listed in Schedule 9 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and causing it to spread can be an offence. Strimming or flailing it, or dumping contaminated soil, is precisely how it spreads, so tell tenants in writing to report it and not to touch it.
Left alone, it can also give rise to a private nuisance claim from a neighbour whose land it encroaches onto, and it will complicate any future sale or remortgage. Use a professional treatment company and keep the guarantee paperwork.
4. Decking, paths, walls and steps
Anything a person can fall off, trip on or be crushed by is a safety issue, not a tidiness issue. Rotten decking, a loose handrail, a leaning boundary wall or lifted paving are all yours to inspect and remedy. Include the garden in your routine property inspections and photograph what you find — a “we never knew” defence rarely survives a claim.
5. Nesting birds
Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to intentionally damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while it is in use or being built. The main nesting season runs roughly from March to August, which is exactly when hedges look their most unruly. Schedule significant hedge cutting outside that window, and check before starting.
Writing a garden clause that actually works
Since the agreement is doing the heavy lifting, the drafting matters more than anything else in this article. Vague clauses fail because nobody can say whether they’ve been breached.
| Weak clause | Better clause |
|---|---|
| “The tenant will keep the garden tidy.” | “The tenant will cut the lawn at least once a fortnight between March and October, keep beds and borders clear of weeds, and keep paths free of moss and obstruction.” |
| “The tenant will maintain the garden.” | “The tenant will maintain the garden in the condition recorded in the check-in inventory, fair wear and tear excepted. The tenant is not responsible for tree work, hedges over 2m, structural repairs or invasive species.” |
| “No alterations to the garden.” | “The tenant will not remove plants or trees, lay hard surfacing, install a pond, or erect structures without the landlord’s prior written consent, which will not be unreasonably withheld.” |
Also state who provides equipment. You are not obliged to supply a lawnmower, but if you expect a lawn to be cut and there is no shed, no mower and nowhere to store one, you have created an argument you will lose. If you do supply tools, keep them maintained, PAT-test anything electrical, and note them on the inventory.
One thing you cannot do is charge for it separately. Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, a standalone garden maintenance fee is a prohibited payment. If you want a gardener, price it into the rent and say so in the advert — many tenants see it as a benefit.
When the tenant lets it go
This is where the Renters’ Rights Act changes the practical picture. Before May 2026, a landlord facing a tenant who wouldn’t touch the garden could reach for a Section 21 notice and move on. That option no longer exists.
Now you would be relying on Ground 12 — breach of a term of the tenancy — which is discretionary. A judge decides whether it is reasonable to make a possession order. A knee-high lawn, on its own, is very unlikely to clear that bar. Realistically your remedies are:
- Raise it early and in writing at inspection, with photos and a specific request.
- Offer a practical fix — supply a mower, or bring in a gardener and absorb the cost rather than let the garden degrade.
- Keep a dated record of every request; it becomes your evidence for a deposit deduction at the end.
- Recover the cost of restoring the garden from the deposit at the end of the tenancy, if the evidence supports it.
Pursuing possession over a garden is almost never proportionate. Managing it during the tenancy is.
Deposit deductions for a wrecked garden
Adjudicators apply the same tests outdoors as in. You need to show the condition at the start, the condition at the end, that the difference goes beyond fair wear and tear, and that your figure is reasonable and doesn’t leave you better off than before.
- Likely to succeed: clearing a garden left waist-high, removing dumped rubbish or an abandoned trampoline, replacing a lawn killed by a dog, making good where a tenant concreted over a bed without consent.
- Likely to fail: seasonal untidiness, plants that died of natural causes or drought, general growth over a long tenancy, and anything you can’t prove looked different at check-in.
The single most valuable thing you can do is photograph the garden properly at check-in — wide shots plus detail, dated, signed off by the tenant as part of the inventory. Without that baseline, most garden claims collapse. Our start of tenancy checklist covers what to capture, and charging a tenant for damages explains how deductions are assessed.
Low-maintenance gardens — and the planning trap
Simplifying the garden is usually the highest-return move a landlord can make here. Fewer beds, robust shrubs, mulch or membrane, and a lawn small enough to cut in fifteen minutes removes most of the argument before it starts.
Two cautions, though.
Paving needs checking. In England, paving more than five square metres of a front garden with impermeable material requires planning permission, unless the surface is porous or drains to a permeable area within the garden. Gravel, permeable block paving and porous asphalt avoid the problem. Back gardens aren’t covered by that rule, but leasehold covenants and drainage still can be. See the Planning Portal guidance on paving front gardens before you commit.
Artificial turf is not maintenance-free. It needs brushing, it traps pet waste and odour, it degrades in strong sun, and it typically needs replacing within a decade. It also does nothing for drainage or biodiversity, and a growing number of tenants actively dislike it. It suits small courtyards and shaded strips where grass won’t grow; it is rarely the right answer for a family garden.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the law backs you up. It largely doesn’t. Your clause is your case.
- Expecting tenants to do specialist work. Unenforceable, and dangerous if they attempt it.
- No check-in photographs. The most common reason garden deductions fail.
- Charging a separate gardening fee. Prohibited under the Tenant Fees Act.
- Ignoring the garden at inspections. Problems compound over a year, and safety issues stay yours.
- Cutting hedges in nesting season. A criminal offence if a nest is in use.
What to do next
Pull out your tenancy agreement and read the garden clause. If it says “keep the garden tidy” and nothing else, rewrite it before your next letting with specific tasks, a frequency, an explicit carve-out for specialist work, and a statement about equipment.
Then do the two practical things that prevent almost every garden dispute: photograph the garden thoroughly at check-in, and look at it properly at every inspection. Gardens rarely go wrong suddenly — they go wrong slowly, while nobody is writing anything down.
Frequently asked questions
Is the landlord legally required to maintain the garden?
Generally no. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 covers the structure and exterior of the dwelling and its installations, not the garden. Your obligations outdoors come from the tenancy agreement, plus safety duties for dangerous features like trees, walls and decking.
Can I make the tenant responsible for the whole garden?
You can make them responsible for routine upkeep, but not for specialist or structural work. A clause requiring a tenant to prune mature trees, treat knotweed or repair boundary walls is likely to be treated as unfair, and safety liability stays with you regardless.
Do I have to provide a lawnmower?
There is no legal duty to. But if you expect a lawn to be cut and there is no equipment and nowhere to store any, that expectation becomes hard to enforce. If you do supply tools, maintain them and list them on the inventory.
Can I evict a tenant for neglecting the garden?
It is very difficult. Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026, so you would need Ground 12 for breach of tenancy, which is discretionary — a judge decides whether possession is reasonable. An untidy garden alone will rarely be enough. Manage it during the tenancy and recover costs from the deposit instead.
Can I charge the tenant a garden maintenance fee?
No. A separate gardening fee is a prohibited payment under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. If you want to provide a gardener, include the cost in the rent and make that clear when advertising.
Who deals with Japanese knotweed?
You do, as landowner. Having it is not illegal, but causing it to spread can be an offence and it can lead to nuisance claims from neighbours. Tell tenants to report it and not to cut or move it, and use a professional treatment firm.
Can I deduct from the deposit for an overgrown garden?
Yes, if you can show the condition at check-in, the condition at check-out, that the difference exceeds fair wear and tear, and that your costs are reasonable. Dated check-in photographs are essential — without them most garden claims fail at adjudication.
Written by the Landlords Portal team — experienced UK landlords covering the private rented sector in England. This article is general information, not legal advice. Rules on protected trees, planning and invasive species vary locally; check with your council before carrying out significant work.
