Scotland has never had a no-fault eviction route for Private Residential Tenancies. Since December 2017, a landlord has needed a reason, and the reason has to be one of eighteen statutory grounds. Two things about that catch people out if they've worked in England. 

Every ground is discretionary. Prove it applies and you still haven't won: the First-tier Tribunal then decides whether eviction is reasonable in all the circumstances. Proving your case gets you a hearing, not an order.

And the notice period usually depends on how long the tenant has been there rather than which ground you pick. Twenty-eight days or eighty-four, with the six-month mark as the switch.

Scope: Private Residential Tenancies in Scotland. Assured, short assured and regulated tenancies run on different processes. Housing is devolved, so England, Wales and Northern Ireland work differently.

How the Process Runs

Serve a Notice to Leave saying the tenant must go, which ground you're using, and how long they have. Wrong on any of those three and the Tribunal may refuse an eviction order later. Wait out the notice period. You cannot apply until it expires. If the tenant is still there when it does, apply for an eviction order.

There's a step in the middle England has no equivalent of. Before applying to the Tribunal, you must provide the local authority with information about the application, unless an exception applies. It is exactly the sort of thing that gets forgotten, so put it in the process rather than trusting anyone to remember it.

You can use more than one ground in a single notice. Where they carry different notice periods, the longest one governs.

The Notice Periods

Twenty-eight days where the tenant has lived there six months or less, whatever ground you use. Twenty-eight days regardless of how long they've been there, if you rely only on the conduct grounds: no longer occupying, breach of agreement, three consecutive months' arrears, relevant criminal conviction, relevant antisocial behaviour, or association with someone in those last two categories.

Eighty-four days where they've been there more than six months and you're relying on anything else. Two mechanical traps. The clock runs from when the tenant receives the notice, not when you send it. And recorded post or email adds two days for deemed service. A third, less obvious: write a longer notice period into the tenancy agreement before the tenant moves in and it's invalid. Twenty-eight days applies instead.

The Eighteen Grounds

One caveat before the list. gov.scot's landlord guidance and mygov.scot present these in different orders, and neither numbers them. They're grouped by type below, so check the exact ground name against current guidance when you fill in a Notice to Leave.

Getting the Property Back

Six grounds cover the landlord wanting the property for themselves or for sale, and four of them expect documentary evidence.

• Selling requires a plan to put the property up for sale within three months of the tenant leaving. A solicitor's letter, an estate agent's letter or a recent home report will do as evidence.

• Sale by the lender covers repossession where the lender needs to sell.

• Refurbishment only works where the job is disruptive enough that the tenant genuinely couldn't stay. Planning permission or a contract with an architect or builder.

• Moving in yourself covers you or a joint landlord. Evidence could include an affidavit, which is a written statement signed under oath before a Notary Public or Justice of the Peace.

• A family member moving in needs them to occupy as their only or main home for at least three months, again with something like an affidavit behind it. The list of who counts is generous: spouse, civil partner, cohabitant, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, sibling, step and half relatives, someone treated as your child, plus the equivalent relatives of your spouse or partner, and their spouses or partners.

• Non-residential use needs planning permission for the change of use.

The Property's Purpose Has Changed

Three narrower grounds. A property held for a religious worker, meaning a priest, nun, monk, imam, lay missionary, minister, rabbi or similar, provided it's been used that way before.

A tenant who stopped being, or never became, your employee, where employment was why they moved in. A tenant who no longer needs supported accommodation, having been assessed as no longer having the community care need that got them there.

The Tenant's Conduct

Six grounds, all carrying 28 days regardless of how long the tenant has lived there.

No longer occupying, where the property isn't the main or only home of the tenant or a legal sub-tenant. This one has a trap: it doesn't apply if you failed your repairing duty and the tenant had to move out for their own safety.

Breach of the agreement, meaning any breach except rent. Arrears have their own ground and you can't run them through this one.

Rent arrears over three consecutive months, where the tenant has owed rent of any amount for three or more months in a row. And here the Tribunal looks at two things beyond the arrears themselves: whether they're down to a delay or failure in a benefit payment, and whether you complied with the pre-action requirements for rent arrears.

That second point is easy to skate past and shouldn't be. Establishing the arrears is not the same as establishing that eviction is reasonable. What you did about them beforehand is part of the question.

Relevant criminal conviction, meaning an offence punishable by imprisonment that involved using the property illegally, letting someone else do so, or committing a crime in or near it.

Relevant antisocial behaviour, meaning conduct causing alarm, distress, nuisance, annoyance or harassment. The Tribunal weighs the behaviour, who was involved and where it happened.

Association, where the tenant lets someone into the property who behaves in a way that would get them evicted if they were the tenant. A sub-tenant, a lodger, or someone admitted more than once.

Those last three share a deadline: apply to the Tribunal within a year of the conviction or the behaviour, unless you have a reasonable excuse.

Letting Has Become Unlawful

Three grounds where you can no longer legally let: landlord registration refused or revoked, HMO licence revoked where keeping all the tenants would no longer be legal, and an overcrowding statutory notice served because occupancy may be affecting occupants' health.

Why "All Discretionary" Changes Everything

England has mandatory grounds. Prove the case and the court must order possession. Scotland's landlord guidance is unambiguous that all eighteen grounds are discretionary, and the Tribunal takes account of all the circumstances. So the ground gets you through the door. It doesn't get you the order.

Which means the file matters more than the ground you picked.

What the Tribunal Actually Wants

Look at how many grounds arrive with an evidence expectation attached. Home reports. Solicitor letters. Planning permission. Builder contracts. Sworn statements. And for arrears, proof of what you tried before eviction.

That's not accidental. The grounds resting on the landlord's intention get watched hardest, because intention costs nothing to assert and is very difficult to disprove.

So build the file as you go. Instruct the agent, keep the confirmation. Get the home report, note the date. Sort the sworn statement when you serve notice, not when the Tribunal asks for it eight months later. And if the sale collapses or the plan changes, write down when and why, that week.

Conduct grounds need the same discipline in a different shape. Dated records of what happened and what was said on both sides. Rent ledgers that reconcile. Correspondence you can produce rather than describe.

A file assembled after a dispute starts reads exactly like a file assembled after a dispute starts.

Structured tenancy and property records holding notices, correspondence and dates in one place are the difference between producing that evidence and reconstructing it.

Two Deadlines Worth Diarising

The conviction, antisocial behaviour and association grounds all need the Tribunal application made within a year of the event, absent a reasonable excuse. Note that's a deadline for applying, not for serving notice. Sit on an antisocial behaviour problem for fourteen months and the ground may simply have gone.

Separately, a Notice to Leave can't normally support an eviction application if more than six months have passed since the notice period expired. A notice served and then left in a drawer while you negotiate can expire out of usefulness.

Wrongful Termination

A tenant who believes they were misled into leaving can apply for a wrongful termination order. The Tribunal may make one where it decides you misled it into granting an eviction order it shouldn't have, or wrongly made the tenant leave.

Currently the maximum is six months' rent. With joint landlords, the order can land on all, some or one of you. And the Tribunal must send a copy to every council where you're registered as a landlord, so the consequence isn't only financial.

 From 6 October 2026 the framework changes. Compensation will run from 3 to 36 times the monthly rent, with £840 used in place of the actual rent where rent is lower. The ceiling therefore moves from six months' rent to 36 times monthly rent, and a floor of three times monthly rent appears where there wasn't one. On a £900 property, today's maximum is £5,400. From October the range is £2,700 to £32,400. Our guide to the 6 October 2026 changes goes through it properly. 

Joint Tenancies

Right now, one joint tenant can't unilaterally end a joint PRT for everyone.

That changes on 1 April 2027. A new process will let one joint tenant end the tenancy for all, using written pre-notice of at least two months and no more than three to the other tenants and the landlord, then a final 28-day notice on the landlord.

Subtenants

Where a tenant has lawfully sublet, the subtenant gets their own notice to leave, including a copy of the one you gave the tenant. Scottish Government guidance indicates the subtenant's notice period follows the same 28 or 84 day pattern based on their own length of occupation, and that subtenants are protected from eviction unless the tenant is being evicted on certain grounds.

The subtenancy rules are fiddlier than the main process. Check them before acting where one exists.

Conclusion

Pick the ground first. It determines the evidence you'll need and sometimes a deadline you're already running against. Work out the notice period from length of occupation and the grounds relied on, remembering receipt starts the clock and post or email adds two days.

Tell the local authority before you go to the Tribunal. And build the file from the day you form the intention, not the day you need it. With wrongful termination exposure rising sharply in October, the quality of that evidence is becoming materially more important.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How many eviction grounds are there in Scotland?
Eighteen, under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016. They cover the landlord wanting the property back, the property's purpose changing, tenant conduct, and situations where continuing to let would be unlawful.

2. Are Scottish eviction grounds mandatory or discretionary?
All discretionary, according to Scottish Government landlord guidance. Unlike England, there's no mandatory category. Even where the ground is proven, the First-tier Tribunal exercises discretion and takes account of all the circumstances.

3. How much notice do I have to give a tenant in Scotland?
Either 28 or 84 days. Twenty-eight where the tenant has lived there six months or less, or where you rely only on the conduct grounds. Otherwise 84 where they've been there more than six months. The period runs from receipt, and recorded post or email adds two days.

4. How much rent arrears are needed to evict in Scotland?
The tenant must have owed rent of any amount for three or more consecutive months. Notice is 28 days regardless of length of occupation. The Tribunal will consider whether the arrears result from a delay or failure in a benefit payment, and whether you complied with the pre-action requirements for rent arrears.

5. What evidence do I need to evict a tenant to sell in Scotland?
A plan to put the property up for sale within three months of the tenant leaving, and proof of it: a solicitor's letter, an estate agent's letter, or a recent home report. From 6 October 2026 wrongful termination compensation rises to between 3 and 36 times monthly rent, so a sale ground you can't evidence carries considerably more risk than it used to.

Important Notice

This article applies to Scotland only and to Private Residential Tenancies. Assured, short assured and regulated tenancies follow different processes. Housing law is devolved and the position differs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Information was checked against Scottish Government guidance and relevant legislation available as at 17 August 2026. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 is being commenced in stages and several provisions require further secondary legislation. Grounds, notice periods and procedural requirements may change.

Always check the current position on gov.scot and mygov.scot before serving a Notice to Leave or applying for an eviction order.

This content is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. RIOO is not a law firm. Eviction proceedings and wrongful termination claims carry significant legal and financial consequences. Consult a solicitor qualified in Scots law before taking action.