How to Complete and File Form N5B: Eligibility, Documents, Filing

To file Form N5B for an accelerated possession claim, you serve a valid Section 21 notice, wait for it to expire, then send the completed form with three copies of every supporting document and a £404 fee to the county court covering the property. The judge decides the case on paper, without a hearing, provided your compliance evidence is watertight. One warning before you start: Section 21 no-fault evictions were abolished on 1 May 2026, so whether you can still use this route depends entirely on when you served your notice.

Can You Still Use Form N5B?

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 ended Section 21 evictions for all tenancies on 1 May 2026. No new Section 21 notice can be served after that date.¹

If you served a valid Section 21 notice before 1 May 2026, you can still file an N5B, but the window closes at whichever comes first: the natural expiry of your notice period, or 31 July 2026. If the earliest date proceedings could begin under your notice falls on or after 1 August 2026, the notice is invalid and cannot be used at all.¹

Once that transitional window shuts, the accelerated possession procedure disappears. Future possession claims will run through the expanded Section 8 grounds, where you have to prove a specific reason and normally attend a hearing.²

Who Can Use This Procedure

Three conditions have to be met before Form N5B is the right route:

The tenancy is a written assured shorthold tenancy. If it isn’t an AST, a different procedure applies.
You have already served a written Section 21 notice on the prescribed Form 6A, giving at least two months’ notice, and that notice has fully expired before you file.³
You are asking only for possession, not for rent arrears. To recover unpaid rent as well, either use the standard possession procedure or bring a separate money claim after the N5B.⁴

Documents to Gather Before You Start

A district judge will decide your case on the paperwork alone. A missing certificate, a late-served document, or a date that doesn’t line up across the file is enough to lose the claim. Pull everything together before you fill in the form.

Tenancy Agreement and Notice

You need the signed tenancy agreement showing the start date, all tenants’ names, the property address, and the rent. Alongside it, include the Form 6A Section 21 notice you served and proof the tenant received it: a certificate of service, a signed acknowledgment, or tracked-delivery confirmation. If you cannot prove service, the claim fails.⁵

Safety and Compliance Certificates

Three documents must have reached the tenant, and copies go in your pack:

A valid Energy Performance Certificate given to the tenant at any point before you served the Section 21 notice. It doesn’t have to predate the tenancy, only the notice.⁶
The current gas safety certificate, provided to the tenant before they moved in and renewed every 12 months. If there is no gas supply, note that on the form.⁶
The government’s “How to Rent” guide. The version you handed over must be the one that was current at the start of the tenancy.⁶

Deposit Protection

If you took a deposit, it must have been registered with a government-approved tenancy deposit scheme within 30 days of receipt.⁷

You also need to show you gave the tenant the prescribed information: which scheme holds the deposit, how to reclaim it, and how disputes are handled. Attach the scheme registration confirmation and the prescribed information document. N5B claims are dismissed routinely when deposit paperwork is incomplete or was served late.

Property Licence

If the local authority requires a licence — selective, additional, or mandatory HMO — you must have held it (or had a live application pending) when the Section 21 notice was served. An unlicensed property in a licensing area makes the notice invalid, which collapses the whole claim.⁸

Filling In the Form

Form N5B is a 20-page PDF on the GOV.UK publications page. Download it and complete it on paper or digitally if your reader allows.⁵

The form covers your details as claimant, the tenant’s details as defendant, the property address, the tenancy dates, and a series of statements you tick to confirm each compliance requirement has been met. Every name and date has to match the tenancy agreement, the Form 6A notice, and the certificates exactly. A single mismatched date — say, the tenancy start on the agreement against what you enter on the form — gives the judge a reason to reject the claim or send it to a hearing.

The section covering the Section 21 notice is the one to check twice. The notice must have given at least two months from the date of service, and the expiry date must already have passed by the day you file. Get this wrong and the court will either bounce the application or a tenant’s defence will succeed with minimal effort.³

Filing the Claim

Send the completed N5B to the county court that covers the area where the property sits. You need one copy for the court, one for yourself, and one for each defendant. A single-tenant claim means three full sets: the form and every supporting document.

The court fee is £404, payable by debit card, credit card, or cheque made out to HM Courts and Tribunals Service.⁴ The Possession Claim Online portal references the same fee, but the N5B is a paper form sent to your local county court rather than filed through that portal.⁹

What Happens After You File

The court serves the claim papers on the tenant once your filing is accepted and the fee has cleared. You don’t have to arrange service at this stage. The tenant then has 14 days from service to file a defence.¹⁰

A defence can argue the Section 21 notice was invalid, that you missed one of the compliance requirements, or that the dates or terms on the form are wrong. The district judge may resolve the defence on paper, or list a hearing if the dispute cannot be settled from the documents.⁴

If no defence is filed and the paperwork holds up, the judge makes a possession order. It usually gives the tenant 14 days to leave, extendable to 42 days in cases of exceptional hardship. From filing to possession order typically runs eight to ten weeks, longer where the court is backed up.

If the Tenant Doesn’t Leave

A possession order doesn’t remove anyone by itself. If the tenant stays past the date on the order, you cannot change the locks. You go back to court for enforcement.

The standard route is Form N325, an application for a warrant of possession sending county court bailiffs to carry out the eviction. The fee is £148, and the completed N325 goes to the court that made the possession order.¹¹ Bailiff scheduling can take several weeks depending on court workload.

If you need to move faster, you can apply to transfer enforcement to the High Court under Section 42 of the County Courts Act 1984. High Court Enforcement Officers often act sooner than county court bailiffs, but the tenant can oppose the transfer, and the court has discretion to refuse it or stay enforcement.¹²

1
GOV.UK. Giving Notice of Possession to Tenants Before 1 May 2026
2
National Residential Landlords Association. After Section 21 Is Abolished: What Comes Next?
3
Legislation.gov.uk. Housing Act 1988 – Section 21
4
GOV.UK. Evicting Tenants in England: Accelerated Possession Orders
5
GOV.UK. Make an Accelerated Claim for Possession of a Property Located Wholly in England: Form N5B
6
Shelter England. When Landlords Cannot Use a Section 21 Notice
7
GOV.UK. Tenancy Deposit Protection
8
Shelter England. What Makes a Section 21 Notice Invalid
9
GOV.UK. Possession Claim Online: Recover Property
10
Justice UK. Part 55 – Possession Claims – Section: II Accelerated Possession Claims
11
National Residential Landlords Association. N325 Form and Bailiff Application Guidance for Landlords
12
Shelter England. Enforcement of Possession Orders by Writs of Possession in the High Court