Grounds 10 and 11: Possession When Arrears Never Reach the Ground 8 Threshold

The Renters' Rights Act raised the mandatory arrears threshold. Ground 8 now requires three months' rent unpaid — thirteen weeks for a weekly or fortnightly tenancy — at both the date of service and the date of the hearing.

That change created a category of landlord with a genuine, expensive problem and no mandatory ground at all: the tenant who pays, but always weeks late; the tenant who pays half and promises the rest; the tenant who sits at six or seven weeks in arrears indefinitely and pays just enough, just often enough, to stay below the line.

For those tenancies, possession runs through Ground 10 and Ground 11. Both are discretionary. And discretionary grounds are not decided on arithmetic — they are decided on the quality of the evidence you can put in front of a judge.

Disclaimer: This guide is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. It describes the position in England as at 19 August 2026. Always consult a solicitor for your specific situation.

Where the Line Actually Falls

Ground 8, in the statute's own words, requires that at both the date of service of the notice and the date of the hearing:

"(a) if rent is payable weekly or fortnightly, at least thirteen weeks' rent is unpaid; (b) if rent is payable monthly, at least three months' rent is unpaid"

Two independent conditions, both of which must hold. A tenant who reaches four months in arrears and then pays two months' worth the week before the hearing has defeated Ground 8 entirely, however serious the history.

That is why Ground 8 is never pleaded alone, and it is why the two discretionary grounds matter far more than their reputation suggests.

Ground 10 — Rent Unpaid

Discretionary. Four weeks' notice.

Ground 10 requires rent to be unpaid at the date of service and at the date the proceedings begin. There is no threshold. One pound of arrears satisfies the ground on its face.

What Ground 10 does not do is guarantee an order. Because it is discretionary, the court must be satisfied that it is reasonable to grant possession, weighing your case against the tenant's circumstances — health, dependants, the reason for the arrears, whether they have engaged with you, whether the debt is reducing. A judge may make an outright order, may suspend the order on terms that the tenant pays current rent plus an amount off the arrears, or may refuse possession and leave you with a money judgment.

Ground 10 is therefore best understood as the floor beneath Ground 8 — the ground that survives a strategic payment — rather than as a standalone route on modest arrears.

Ground 11 — Persistent Delay in Paying Rent

Discretionary. Four weeks' notice.

Ground 11 is the one written for the problem this article is about, and it is consistently under-used because landlords do not have the evidence to run it.

It concerns persistent delay in paying rent, and — critically — it applies whether or not there are arrears at the date of the notice. A tenant who pays every month in full, three weeks after the due date, every month for two years, is squarely within Ground 11 and entirely outside Grounds 8 and 10.

The difficulty is that "persistent delay" is not a number. It is a pattern, and a pattern is a thing you either recorded or did not. A judge assessing reasonableness on Ground 11 is being asked to accept a characterisation of two years of conduct. The characterisation is only as good as the record behind it.

What "Quality of Evidence" Actually Means Here

There is a specific difference between the two kinds of record a landlord turns up with.

The reconstructed record. After the relationship breaks down, the landlord downloads two years of bank statements, sorts them, and builds a spreadsheet. This is admissible and it is better than nothing. But it shows receipts, not lateness. It cannot easily show what was chased, what was promised, what was agreed and then missed, or how a partial payment was allocated. It was made for the dispute, and it reads that way.

The contemporaneous record. The landlord has, for every rent period since the tenancy began: the date rent fell due, the date it actually arrived, the amount, the running balance, and the chasing message sent when it was late. Nothing in it was written with a hearing in mind. It simply existed, and now it is being printed.

Those two documents can contain identical numbers and carry very different weight. On a discretionary ground, where the judge is exercising a judgment about reasonableness rather than applying a test, that difference is often the whole case.

Building the Record for Ground 11

For each rent period, from the start of the tenancy:

• Date due — as set by the tenancy, not as habitually paid
• Date received — the actual date the money landed, which is the fact Ground 11 turns on
• Amount received — and, where it was a partial payment, how it was allocated
• Running balance — carried forward, so the shape of the tenancy is visible at a glance
• Contact — the date and substance of any chase, and any arrangement agreed

Then keep the surrounding paper: chasing emails and letters, any repayment plan that was agreed and then not honoured (this is powerful on reasonableness), and any acknowledgment from the tenant of the pattern.

The record is the case. On Ground 11 you are not proving a number, you are proving a habit — and a habit assembled after the dispute begins is worth far less than one that was already there. LetSorted's rent tracking records what was due and when payment actually arrived, month after month, as an ordinary part of running the tenancy. Start keeping the record now, while everything is still fine.

Pleading Them Together

Standard practice is to plead Grounds 8, 10 and 11 together where the facts allow it. Each covers a different failure mode:

Note the last row. It is the case that has no mandatory answer at all, and the case most likely to be dismissed as "not worth pursuing" — right up until you calculate what two years of it has cost, which our guide on the financial cost of a problem tenant sets out.

Two cautions on pleading. First, on the notice period: Grounds 8, 10 and 11 all carry four weeks, so combining them is straightforward. Adding a ground with a different period is not — and adding Ground 14 in particular takes the notice outside section 8(4AA) altogether, as explained in the complete picture of the Section 8 grounds. Second, section 8(5) allows the court to dispense with the notice requirement where it is just and equitable, but not for Ground 8. Grounds 10 and 11 are within that power; Ground 8 is not.

The Universal Credit Point

Ground 8 carries a carve-out that Grounds 10 and 11 do not. Where a tenant is entitled to a housing element of Universal Credit and rent was unpaid only because the award had not yet been paid, that amount is ignored in calculating the Ground 8 arrears.

Two boundaries matter. It is Universal Credit specifically — not benefits at large, whatever a summary page may say — and it applies only where the non-payment was caused by the award not yet arriving. But the practical lesson is broader: a payment history that shows why a period was late, and shows a landlord who engaged rather than escalated, is the same record that answers this point. Our guide to letting to tenants on Universal Credit covers the assessment rules that apply before the tenancy ever starts.

Before You Reach for a Notice

Discretionary grounds reward landlords who behaved reasonably, and the record proves that too. Before serving:

1. Put the position in writing to the tenant — the balance, how it arose, and what you propose
2. Offer a repayment arrangement and record it. If it is honoured, you have avoided a court claim. If it is not, you have the strongest single item of Ground 11 evidence there is
3. Check your own compliance — deposit protection is a hard bar on a possession order, and gas, electrical and How to Rent obligations will be raised
4. Check the arithmetic against Ground 8 before assuming it is out of reach

Our timeline of what to do when rent arrears start walks through the sequence in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Ground 10 and Ground 11?

Ground 10 requires rent to be unpaid at the date of service and at the date of the hearing — any amount, with no threshold. Ground 11 concerns persistent delay in paying rent and applies whether or not there are arrears at the date of the notice. A tenant who always pays, but always three weeks late, is a Ground 11 case and not a Ground 10 case. Both are discretionary and both carry four weeks' notice.

Can I get possession if the tenant is only one month in arrears?

Ground 8 is not available — it requires at least three months' rent unpaid, or thirteen weeks for a weekly or fortnightly tenancy, at both service and hearing. Ground 10 is available at any level of arrears, but it is discretionary: the court must also be satisfied that it is reasonable to make an order, weighing your evidence against the tenant's circumstances. In practice a single month's arrears with no wider pattern is a weak case on its own.

What evidence does the court expect on Ground 11?

A record of the whole tenancy showing, for each rent period, the date the rent fell due and the date the payment actually arrived — so that the delay is visible as a pattern rather than asserted as a conclusion. Chasing correspondence, and any repayment arrangements that were agreed and then not honoured, support it. A ledger built from bank statements after the dispute has begun is admissible, but it carries far less weight than one that already existed.

Sources

• Housing Act 1988, Schedule 2 — Grounds 8, 10 and 11 as currently in force
• Housing Act 1988, section 8 — notice requirements and periods
• Renters' Rights Act 2025 — the amending Act
• GOV.UK: assured tenancy forms — Form 3A for private landlords