Something is happening quietly across Broxbourne and other districts in Hertfordshire that will affect anyone looking for a rental property this year: landlords are selling up and leaving the market in droves.

Not because they've made their money and want out. Not because property prices are irresistible. They're leaving because the system has made being a landlord, particularly one with a difficult tenant, so expensive, so slow, and so emotionally exhausting that selling has become the only rational choice.

In the first weeks of 2026, I've spoken to several landlords who have either sold their rental properties or are desperately trying to exit before new legislation makes it even harder. They asked to remain anonymous, not because they're ashamed, but because some are still navigating legal processes and fear retribution. Their stories share a haunting thread: months of unpaid rent, thousands in legal fees, properties left damaged, and a system that seemed designed to delay rather than resolve.

"I am a landlord who would like to sell this property. Not to re-rent. I am getting older and need to downsize," one Broxbourne property owner tells me, their voice thick with frustration. "I had the property fully renovated before this tenant moved in. The flat has been severely damaged. Several doors of a new kitchen have been dismantled, holes punched in walls, carpets destroyed."

They continue: "The tenant has been notified that I need them to move as I want to sell, and this has been going on for a couple of years. Each time I approach the tenant, I am advised that they are on the high priority list to move with the council. Then out of the blue, the council calls and rather abruptly and rudely advised me that they have told the tenant to remain and do nothing."

The landlord's voice breaks slightly as they describe the impact: "They are driving me to a legal process by issuing a Section 21 notice, which I had to rush to do before they abolished it, and it's still taking over a year to resolve. In the meantime, the tenant can continue to live there and continue to damage the property. Remember, as a landlord I have to ensure that the property remains safe and in a condition to live in. I'm paying for repairs to damage I didn't cause, while receiving no rent. The council are causing me more stress and costs. At my age, this should be my time to relax, but instead I'm £15,000 out of pocket and dealing with solicitors and court dates."

These aren't rogue landlords trying to turf out vulnerable families. They're people who followed the rules, served proper notice, went to court, won their cases, and still waited months, sometimes over a year, while paying mortgages on properties generating no income, all while watching those properties deteriorate.

Here's how it typically works when a landlord in Broxbourne needs to regain possession of their property:

They serve a Section 21 notice, giving the tenant two months to leave. The tenant doesn't leave. The landlord then has no choice but to apply to the County Court for a possession order. That's a £391 fee and usually £1,500-£3,000 in solicitor costs on top. Courts are so backlogged that hearings are taking six to eight months. If the landlord wins (which they usually do, if the paperwork is correct), they get a possession order. The tenant still doesn't leave. The landlord must then book County Court bailiffs, which adds another eight to twelve weeks.

From serving notice to actually regaining the property: twelve to fifteen months is now normal. Throughout that period, the landlord typically receives no rent while remaining liable for the mortgage, insurance, and any repairs. One landlord calculated their total loss at over £20,000 for a single problematic tenancy.

But here's what makes landlords especially angry: the role councils play in extending this timeline, and the timing of new legislation that has made their situation even more precarious.

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Under homelessness legislation, councils have a duty to help people who are about to lose their homes. In practice, this creates a perverse incentive that turns private landlords into unpaid providers of temporary accommodation.

If a tenant leaves a property voluntarily when their notice expires, the council can classify them as "intentionally homeless," which affects their priority for social housing. So housing officers routinely advise tenants to stay put until the bailiffs physically remove them, a process that can add six months to a year to the eviction timeline.

This isn't speculation. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has repeatedly ruled that blanket "stay put" policies constitute maladministration. Yet councils continue the practice because it works for their budgets: it delays accepting a homelessness duty and effectively uses private rental properties as free temporary accommodation, without paying the landlord a penny.

When I approached Broxbourne Borough Council about their advice to tenants facing eviction proceedings, a spokesperson provided this statement:

The statement doesn't directly address whether they advise tenants to remain until bailiff enforcement. A telling omission that landlords interpret as confirmation of the practice.

There was a moment that crystallized the exodus. The Renters' Rights Act, passed in October 2025, abolished Section 21 "no-fault" evictions entirely. The legislation came into force on 1st June 2025 for new tenancies, and from 1st June 2026, just five months from now, it will apply to all existing tenancies.

After that date, landlords will only be able to evict tenants on specific grounds: selling the property (but only if they have a genuine buyer and can prove it), moving family in (with significant restrictions), or tenant fault like serious rent arrears or antisocial behaviour. Even these grounds require extensive evidence, longer notice periods, and the same court processes that currently take over a year.

Landlords who've been tolerating difficult situations, tenants who pay late, cause minor damage, or create neighbour complaints that don't quite reach the threshold for antisocial behaviour, made a stark calculation in late 2025: use Section 21 while it still exists for your tenancy type, or face a future where removing a problematic tenant becomes nearly impossible.

The result was a stampede. Possession claims surged by 40% in the final quarter of 2025, overwhelming already-backlogged courts. County Court bailiffs in Hertfordshire are now booking enforcement dates for September 2026 and beyond. And crucially, thousands of landlords concluded that the game is no longer worth the candle.

"I thought about trying to hang on, find better tenants, make it work," another Broxbourne landlord tells me. "But then I looked at the new law. If I get another tenant who stops paying, I have to prove they're at least two months in arrears, wait for court, wait for bailiffs, and that's if everything goes perfectly. Meanwhile I'm retired, living on a fixed income, and that rental property was supposed to supplement my pension. Instead it's become a source of anxiety and loss. I sold in November. The couple who bought it are lovely, but they're moving in themselves. That's one less home for renters in Broxbourne."

Every landlord who sells to an owner-occupier is one fewer rental property in the borough. Every landlord who sells to another investor, who then raises rents by 15-20% to price in the massively increased risk, is a home that becomes unaffordable for the people who need it most.

Broxbourne already has painfully limited rental stock compared to demand. The borough isn't building significant new housing, certainly not enough to replace the rental properties being lost to owner-occupation. When supply shrinks and demand stays constant, simple economics takes over: rents rise and competition intensifies.

But the statistics mask the human cost. The people who'll struggle most aren't abstract figures. They're the teaching assistant who can't quite afford to buy but earns too much for social housing. The young professional trying to stay close to aging parents. The family who had to leave London but can't yet scrape together a deposit. These are people who pay their rent on time, treat properties with respect, and simply need somewhere stable to live while they build toward ownership.

Walk down any street in Wormley, Hoddesdon, or Cheshunt and you'll see the "For Sale" boards going up on properties that were, until recently, rentals. Behind each one is a landlord who reached their breaking point, and a tenant who'll soon be competing for a smaller pool of available homes.

This isn't a defence of bad landlords. They exist, and tenants absolutely deserve protection from exploitation, unsafe conditions, and illegal evictions. The horror stories of rogue landlords who harass tenants, refuse repairs, and use intimidation are real and deserving of prosecution.

But the current system doesn't distinguish between a landlord trying to illegally turf out a family to raise rents and one who simply needs their property back after a year of unpaid rent, thousands in damage, and antisocial behaviour that has neighbors threatening to move. It treats both with the same suspicion, the same delays, the same assumption of bad faith.

The Renters' Rights Act was designed to protect vulnerable tenants from unfair eviction. It's a noble goal that few would argue against. But policy must grapple with reality, not just intention. And the reality is that when you make it extremely difficult to remove problematic tenants, you don't just protect the vulnerable. You also create a system where ordinary landlords calculate they can no longer afford the risk.

The anonymous Broxbourne landlord I spoke to put it plainly: "I'm not a property tycoon. I worked for forty years, bought a second property when I could afford it, and planned to use the rent for my retirement. I maintained the property well, charged reasonable rent, and thought I was providing a valuable service. But after this experience, the financial losses, the legal stress, the damage, and being made to feel like a criminal for wanting my own property back, I'm done. And I know at least five other landlords in Broxbourne who feel exactly the same way."

The landlords leaving Broxbourne aren't pantomime villains twirling their moustaches. They're ordinary people who did the maths and decided the risk no longer justified the return. Many had held their properties for years, weathered difficult tenants before, and genuinely tried to make it work. The new legislative environment was simply the final straw.

The tragedy, the profound, heartbreaking tragedy, is that tenants will bear the cost of their departure. Not the tenants who caused the problems, who will eventually be housed by the council after months of delays. But the good tenants, the ones who pay on time and care for their homes, who will find themselves in bidding wars for fewer properties, forced to pay higher rents, competing against dozens of other applicants, and possibly pushed out of the borough entirely.

In trying to protect tenants, we may have created a system that ultimately harms them. The landlords are leaving. The properties are becoming owner-occupied. The rental stock is shrinking. And the people who'll suffer most are exactly the ones the legislation was meant to protect.

There are no easy answers here. Tenants need protection from exploitation. Landlords need practical routes to regain their properties when things go wrong. Councils need resources to house vulnerable people without using private landlords as unpaid providers. Courts need funding to process cases quickly.

But until we grapple with these competing realities, until we build a system that works for good tenants AND responsible landlords, we'll continue to watch rental properties disappear from Broxbourne, and the people who need them most will pay the price.

The question isn't whether we should protect tenants. It's whether the way we're doing it might ultimately leave them with nowhere to rent at all.

If you are a landlord affected by this and would like to share some more information, please contact us directly on [email protected] or by replying to this email directly.

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Editor-in-chief | Emeka Ogbonnaya

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