What happens to my tenancy if my landlord sells?

The tenancy survives

A sale does not end a tenancy. The buyer takes the property subject to it, and inherits the landlord's obligations and rights on the same terms. Your rent, your notice periods and your agreement all carry over unchanged.

What should change is who you deal with and where you pay. You are entitled to be told the new owner's name and an address for serving notices, and in England that is a specific statutory requirement. Until it is given, rent is not lawfully due, which matters a great deal if arrears are later alleged against you.

What happens to your deposit

It has to move properly rather than quietly. Either it is returned to the scheme and re-protected by the new owner or their agent, or the scheme's own transfer process is used. Either way you should be served fresh prescribed information showing who now holds it and under which scheme.

Ask for three things in writing: the scheme name, the protection reference, and the date the prescribed information was served. This is the single most common failure point when a property changes hands, and the penalties for getting it wrong fall on the landlord, up to three times the deposit.

Selling as a ground for possession

Wanting to sell with vacant possession is a recognised ground in both countries, but it is a ground to be established rather than a notice to be waved.

In England, section 21 no fault eviction was abolished on 1 May 2026 by the Renters' Rights Act. Possession now runs through specified grounds, each with its own notice period and evidence requirements, and intending to sell is one of them. In Scotland, the landlord intends to sell is one of the statutory eviction grounds for a private residential tenancy, served through a notice to leave with the correct period.

In both cases a tribunal or court can test whether the intention is genuine. A ground used as a pretext is a ground that can fail.

Viewings and access

You are entitled to quiet enjoyment throughout. Viewings require reasonable notice, normally at least twenty four hours in writing, and your agreement to the time. A clause purporting to give unlimited access does not override the underlying right, and repeated visits without notice can amount to harassment.

In practice, cooperating on a fixed schedule, for example two afternoons a week, usually works better for everyone than refusing outright or being available at any hour.

If you are the one selling

Two practical points from the handover work we have looked at across five cities.

First, a tenanted sale to another landlord is often simpler and quicker than seeking vacant possession, and it avoids the void period entirely. Investors will pay for a good tenant with a clean payment record, and your rent ledger is the evidence for that.

Second, whichever route you take, get the paperwork in one place before you market: the tenancy agreement and any renewals, the deposit protection certificate and prescribed information, the gas and electrical certificates, the energy performance certificate, the inventory, inspection reports and the rent ledger. That list is the same one we recommend for changing agent, and for the same reason. Whoever takes over will need every item, and assembling it late is what causes the delay.