Landlords are selling up. What it looks like from the buying side

Plenty of landlords have had enough. Some have one flat, bought years ago as a pension. Some have six or seven houses and a spreadsheet that stopped adding up a while back. Very few are selling because they want to.

They're selling because the rules, the costs and the time it all takes have moved against them. That's worth being honest about, because the reason you're selling should shape how you sell.

How we got here

None of this happened overnight. It has been building for the best part of a decade.

Between 2017 and 2020, individual landlords lost the ability to deduct mortgage interest from their rental income. It was replaced with a flat 20% tax credit. For a basic rate taxpayer with a modest mortgage, not much changed. For a higher rate taxpayer with a large one, it could turn a profitable let into a loss-making one, on paper and in the bank.

In October 2024 the stamp duty surcharge on additional properties went from 3% to 5%, which made buying the next property more expensive and the exit more attractive.

Then came the Renters' Rights Act. Since 1 May 2026, landlords in England can no longer serve a section 21 notice, and most assured shorthold tenancies became assured periodic tenancies. Fixed terms that simply come to an end have gone. A tenancy now runs until the tenant leaves or the landlord uses one of the grounds for possession, and has to prove it.

Taken one at a time, each of these is manageable. Together, for a landlord who never set out to run a business, they add up to a lot of time, a lot of risk and not much return.

The new selling ground

If you want a house empty so you can sell it, there is now a specific ground for that. You give four months' notice. You can't use it in the first 12 months of a tenancy. And you normally can't let the property again for 16 months from serving the notice.

That last part is the one to think hard about. It exists to stop landlords using “I'm selling” as a way to swap one tenant for another at a higher rent. Fair enough. But it also means that once you serve the notice, you are committed. If the house doesn't sell for what you hoped, you can't simply put it back on the rental market next month.

And if the tenant doesn't leave when the notice ends, you need a possession order from the court, with a hearing. That can take months you didn't plan for.

You don't have to empty the house first

This is the one people most often don't realise. You can sell a house with the tenants still living in it. You don't need their permission. The tenancy carries on under the new owner, on the same terms, and the deposit has to stay protected. The buyer simply becomes the landlord.

Whether that's the right route depends on the house. A tenanted house suits an investor far more than a family, so it reaches a smaller pool of buyers, and the price tends to reflect that. An empty house reaches everyone, but you carry the notice period, the months it sits empty while it's marketed, and the risk that the tenant doesn't leave on time.

Neither is automatically better. It's a sum worth doing properly before you serve anyone notice, not after. What would the house fetch empty, less the lost rent, the empty-property bills and a sensible allowance for delay? What would it fetch tenanted, today? Sometimes the gap is smaller than people expect.

Think about who lives there

If you have a good tenant who has been there for years, ask whether a buyer would keep them. A tenant who pays on time and looks after the place has value to the right buyer, and a sale that leaves them in a stable home is usually a better outcome for everyone than one that starts with a possession claim.

It's often simpler for you, too. Fewer viewings, no empty months and no court dates to plan around.

The opposite is true as well. If the tenancy has problems, arrears or a history, most buyers will want that reflected in the price, and a few won't touch it at all. Better to know that before you set expectations.

Selling a portfolio

If you have more than one property, you don't have to do the same thing with all of them, or do it all at once.

Some houses will sell best empty, to a family. Some will sell best tenanted, to an investor. Some are worth keeping a while longer. The order you sell in can affect your tax bill, because capital gains are taxed year by year and each year has its own allowance. And selling one at a time gives you the chance to see how the first sale goes before committing to the next.

The landlords who find this easiest tend to be the ones who treat the exit as a plan rather than a single decision.

Before you sell

• Speak to an accountant about capital gains tax, the order you sell in, and the 60-day deadline for reporting and paying after each sale
• Check your mortgage for early repayment charges
• Pull together the tenancy agreement, deposit protection certificate, gas safety record, electrical report and EPC for each property
• Decide whether you want each house empty or tenanted before you serve any notice
• If a house is licensed as an HMO, remember the licence won't pass to the buyer

If a straightforward sale to one buyer, on a timescale you choose, would make life easier, talk to us. If an estate agent is the better route for your property, we'll tell you that too.