As a housing lawyer I help clients fight eviction notices. Yesterday, I was issued one too

Earlier that week we’d all received, hand-delivered and by email, a suite of documents: gas safety, Energy Performance Certificate, electrical safety, ‘how to rent’ guide, deposit protection information. I know these well; I check them routinely for technical defences to Section 21 notices.

Buried in my notifications: an email at 3.30pm serving us a Section 21 notice.

The date was not accidental: 30 April was the last day a Section 21 could legally be served. This produced an inevitable cliff edge, and landlords – well-advised and well-resourced – have been racing to deploy a legal weapon before it was abolished.

My honest reaction? Mild annoyance. I’ll find a technical defence or use my modest savings to move elsewhere. I’ll be fine.

The last three clients on my books were faced with the same notice in their hands as the one I received, but for them things are different. A family of six, father unable to work, mother juggling employment and everything else. Already overcrowded, now facing a market of inflated rents where their budget means smaller.

A single parent with an autistic child who has finally settled into school, on every waiting list under the sun. Will they be forced to relocate?

A family of seven, including older parents and a severely disabled adult son. The local community knows how to guide him home when he goes missing, but if they’re uprooted, who will?

All on benefits, all working or retired, all potentially losing their home. Their landlord didn’t even have to say why. I am at ease because I lack their precarity. The comfort I can offer is legal advice, and I’m certain at least two of these families have a technical defence.

There is a false illusion in this: they are among the few with access to a legal aid lawyer at all. Roughly 25% of the population qualifies for civil legal aid, but just under half do not have a housing provider in their county. Legal aid rates today are lower in actual terms than 1996 – the year after I was born.

The result is legal advice deserts across whole counties. There were once eight law centres in Greater Manchester, now there is only one – ours. Our housing team numbers six and our frequent response to a Section 21 is, reluctantly: “Sorry, no capacity.”

If you think finding an NHS dentist is hard, try finding a legal aid housing lawyer when you’re staring down the barrel of an eviction.

Legal aid was introduced in 1949 as part of Clement Attlee’s post-war welfare state, and it is as essential as the NHS, as schools, as the rule of law itself. Successive governments have cut it to the bone, and families like the ones I’ve described suffer the consequences.

“If you think finding an NHS dentist is hard, try finding a legal aid housing lawyer when you’re staring down the barrel of an eviction”

Which is why today matters. From 1 May 2026, Section 21s are gone. Landlords must now have grounds for possession and establish them in a court of law. This is the most significant evolution of housing law in my lifetime. Tenants, and in particular private tenants, have better legal rights.

But rights on paper are only as good as the advice that makes them real. The Law Centres Network and the Law Society have warned that the act cannot achieve its aims without investment in courts and housing legal aid. These new legal contests need diligent and dedicated representation. Without it, the Renters’ Rights Act delivers better law on paper, but justice for most remains out of reach.

Today, Section 21 notices are over. Yet the fear of losing your home – for the families I represent, for millions without a lawyer to call – remains. The act has changed the law. Now we must fund the infrastructure to make it justice.

Oh, and for any housing lawyers wondering? No, I haven’t had a chance to check whether my Section 21 is valid yet: no capacity.

Oliver Edwards, housing, homelessness and public law solicitor, Greater Manchester Law Centre