UK Construction and Law

A banning order that took effect only when the tenancies ended is set aside as irrational

By Staff Writer  |  28 August 2026

The Upper Tribunal replaced a five year banning order made against a Sheffield landlord. The tribunal below had tied the start date to the termination of the current tenancies, which might never happen, and had not weighed what ending them would do to the tenants. The ban now runs to 10 September 2030.

The landlord pleaded guilty in March 2024 to two offences under section 1(3A) of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, committed at one of his Sheffield properties over a fortnight in December 2022. Those are banning order offences. The council served notice of its intention to apply in August 2024, and in September 2025 the First-tier Tribunal made a five year order, finding that two tenants had left their homes as a direct result of repeated and wholly unjustified behaviour including invasion of privacy and verbal and physical aggression.

The order itself was the problem. Paragraph 2 provided that the ban was to take effect on termination of the current tenancies of the landlord's properties. The landlord appealed, unrepresented, and the council chose not to take part.

A start date that might never arrive

The Upper Tribunal set that paragraph aside. The intention had plainly been that the landlord would end the tenancies and the ban would then run, with managing agents making the arrangements. But if the agents failed, the ban would never start, and there was no end stop to make it take effect in any event.

Paragraph 2 is irrational because it provides for the banning order to take effect at an uncertain point that might never occur.

Judge Elizabeth Cooke

There was a second defect in the same paragraph. The postponement was not confined to the properties already let, so on its terms nothing stopped the landlord letting a different property in the meantime. The tribunal was not suggesting he would, since he had said he no longer wished to be a landlord, but an order in that format leaves a loophole open.

The tenants have to be considered, and now more than before

Section 16(4)(d) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 requires the tribunal to consider the likely effect of a banning order on the person banned and on anyone else who may be affected. The tribunal below had asked for the tenants' names and addresses and copies of the tenancy agreements. That was not enough once it decided to require the tenancies to be brought to an end.

The first is that it is very troubling to see an order requiring the landlord to bring tenancies to an end without express and careful consideration of the interests of the tenants.

Judge Elizabeth Cooke

The change in the possession rules sharpens this. When the order below was made, the no fault ground in section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 was still available and tenants in general were exposed to it. Since 1 May 2026 they are not. So an order requiring a landlord to end tenancies is now a greater interference with the tenants' home and rights than it would have been before. The route that remains is Ground 6B in Schedule 2 to the 1988 Act, which applies where letting causes the landlord to breach a banning order, or would do so if the letting continued. That ground is mandatory, so the court making the possession order has no scope to look at the tenants' position. The tribunal said it is therefore vital that the First-tier Tribunal does so, and that in an appropriate case tenants should be given the chance to make representations.

The tribunal declined to decide, without argument, whether the First-tier Tribunal has power to require a landlord to evict his tenants at all. It did not have to, because the order failed on discretion. Treat that as live.

The substituted order

Rather than remit, the Upper Tribunal set the order aside as a whole and substituted its own. The landlord is banned from letting housing in England, from English letting agency work and from English property management work until 10 September 2030, which preserves the five years the First-tier Tribunal had chosen, measured from its own decision. For the four properties that were tenanted at the date of the hearing the ban takes effect on the earlier of 7 November 2026 and the date he ceases to be the landlord of each, so the exception is fixed to a date rather than to an event. Two conditions attach: managing agents approved in writing by the council must be appointed by 7 September 2026, and there is to be no face to face contact with any tenant.

The drafting lesson is short. A banning order postponed against an event needs a longstop date, and the postponement must be tied to the specific properties, or the order is both unenforceable and porous.