Manchester Possession Claims Tracker

The headline figures

Headline supporting figures for Manchester private landlord possession claims, April to June 2026

Supporting figures	Figure
Manchester private landlord claims a year earlier, Apr to Jun 2025	113
Size of the rise by number of claims. Only Enfield (+59) and Haringey (+55) were larger	+40
Rank by number of extra claims, among 317 councils in England and Wales (full list in the national CSV)	3rd
Rank by percentage rise, among the 32 councils with 50 or more claims in Apr to Jun 2025	6th of 32
Median percentage change across those 32 councils	+2.4%
Manchester private landlord plus accelerated claims, up 17% (England and Wales up 10%)	296
Manchester and Salford private landlord claims added together (a Beacon aggregate, not an official area). Highest since the series began in 2003, previous high 203	226
Manchester landlord possession claims of all types	411

Section 21 no-fault eviction was abolished on 1 May 2026. From that date landlords could no longer serve a new Section 21 notice, although claims on notices already served could still be issued until 31 July. April to June 2026 is the first quarter to include the change. These are the first Ministry of Justice figures to cover it. They were published on 13 August 2026 and updated on 19 August.

It also broke a pattern. In each of the previous four years, Manchester's private landlord claims fell from the first quarter of the year to the second. This year they rose, from 132 to 153.

An important caution. The Ministry of Justice says it is not clear whether changes in claims "can be attributed to commencement of the Act", and that it will keep monitoring the trend. These figures show what happened. They do not show why, and a single quarter is not a trend.

Manchester private landlord claims per quarter, 2023 to 2026

The rise is concentrated in Manchester and Salford

Manchester and Salford added 56 private landlord claims between them, more than Greater Manchester's net rise of 53. The other eight boroughs combined fell slightly, from 222 to 219, and four of them recorded falls. Counting accelerated claims as well, those eight boroughs rose 7.5 per cent, against 17 per cent in Manchester.

Private landlord possession claims by Greater Manchester borough, April to June 2025 and 2026

Borough	2025	2026	Change	%
Manchester	113	153	+40	+35%
Salford	57	73	+16	+28%
Wigan	27	33	+6	+22%
Tameside	24	25	+1	+4%
Oldham	29	30	+1	+3%
Bolton	35	36	+1	+3%
Bury	27	26	−1	−4%
Rochdale	38	36	−2	−5%
Trafford	18	16	−2	−11%
Stockport	24	17	−7	−29%

Private landlord possession claims, April to June 2025 and April to June 2026. Percentages on small numbers swing sharply: Trafford's fall is two claims. Beacon Living Group analysis of Ministry of Justice local authority data.

In short: Manchester and Salford combined reached 226 private landlord claims in April to June 2026, above the previous high of 203 in January to March 2025.

How Manchester compares nationally

Across England and Wales, 32 local authorities recorded at least 50 private landlord possession claims in April to June 2025, a threshold we use so that percentage changes are not driven by a handful of cases. All 32 are in England. Manchester ranked sixth of those 32 for the percentage size of its increase. The median change across the group was 2.4 per cent. Measured by the number of extra claims instead, Manchester's rise of 40 was the third-largest in England and Wales, behind Enfield (59) and Haringey (55).

Largest percentage rises in private landlord possession claims, England and Wales, April to June 2026

Council	2025	2026	Extra claims	% change
Haringey	93	148	+55	+59.1%
Enfield	146	205	+59	+40.4%
Hounslow	62	87	+25	+40.3%
Westminster	90	126	+36	+40.0%
Leeds	66	91	+25	+37.9%
Manchester	113	153	+40	+35.4%
Salford	57	73	+16	+28.1%
Birmingham	123	157	+34	+27.6%
Ealing	103	130	+27	+26.2%
Bradford	52	61	+9	+17.3%

Largest percentage rises in private landlord claims, April to June 2026 against 2025. Top 10 of the 32 councils in England and Wales with 50 or more claims in April to June 2025 (none in Wales qualify). Source: Ministry of Justice. Download every council, CSV (the 32 qualifying councils are flagged, and the national total is included).

Four of the five councils above Manchester are London boroughs. The other is Leeds.

What this does and does not tell you

What the data supports. Private landlord possession claims in Manchester are at their highest quarterly level in more than twenty years, they rose far faster than the national average, and the increase in that category is concentrated in Manchester and Salford rather than spread across Greater Manchester. Allowing for landlords switching from the accelerated route, Manchester's private landlord and accelerated claims together still rose 17 per cent, from 253 to 296, against 10 per cent across England and Wales. That combined total is not a record: it was higher in January to March 2025 (333) and in the first half of 2024.

Claims are not evictions. Across England and Wales, landlord warrants fell 6 per cent and landlord repossessions fell 3 per cent in the same quarter, counting all types of landlord. In Manchester, private landlord repossessions were 44, against 25 a year earlier (the private_landlord_repossessions column in the Greater Manchester CSV below). That is not unusual for the city: there were 46 in April to June 2024 and 44 in July to September 2024, so the 2025 figure was a low point. Repossessions mostly follow claims made months earlier, so they trail the claims figures.

What it does not support. It does not show that the Renters' Rights Act caused this, and the Ministry of Justice says so directly. There are other plausible explanations that this data cannot separate. The first is timing. Landlords with a Section 21 notice served before 1 May 2026 had to start court proceedings by 31 July 2026 at the latest, so some of the rise may be landlords bringing forward claims they would otherwise have made later. Accelerated claims rose 16 per cent nationally in the same quarter, which is consistent with a rush to use the old route before it closed. In Manchester, though, accelerated claims were almost flat, at 143 against 140, so any rush did not show up in the city's accelerated figures. Section 21 claims can also be brought on the standard procedure, so a rush through the standard route cannot be ruled out. Once claims on old Section 21 notices end on 31 July, cases that would have been accelerated claims should be counted as private landlord claims. The private landlord series on its own is then likely to rise for structural reasons, so from the July to September figures the combined private plus accelerated total is the like-for-like measure. The second is ordinary volatility: Manchester's count fell from 139 to 113 within 2025, so a one-quarter swing of this size has happened before. The November release covers July to September, which includes that 31 July deadline, and will be a far better guide.

What we will do next. The next Ministry of Justice release is due on 12 November 2026 and covers July to September, which includes the 31 July cut-off for starting claims on old Section 21 notices. October to December should be the first full quarter with no new claims on Section 21 notices. This page will be updated on the day of the release, and the comparison that matters will be whether Manchester stays above the national trend once the transitional rush has washed through.

Methodology

• Source. Ministry of Justice, Mortgage and Landlord Possession Statistics, April to June 2026, published 13 August 2026 and updated 19 August 2026. Figures are taken from "LA CSV.csv" inside the release's Mortgage and landlord possession statistical data file (Main_CSVs.zip). National changes, warrants and repossessions are from the release's statistical tables.
• Matching. Local authorities are matched by their official code, not their name, because two councils (Barnsley and Sheffield) appear with blank names in the 2026 rows of the source file. This does not change any figure for Greater Manchester.
• What is counted. Possession claims issued in county court, by local authority area. A claim is the start of a court process, not an eviction. Warrants and repossessions are separate measures and are lower.
• Categories. The Ministry of Justice splits landlord claims into accelerated, private landlord and social landlord. Figures described here as private landlord claims use the private landlord category only. Figures described as all landlord claims are the sum of all three.
• Validation. Summing the local authority file for England and Wales reproduces the published national headline exactly, at 23,635 landlord claims for April to June 2026 against 22,352 a year earlier. The same method gives the Ministry of Justice's published year-on-year changes of plus 16 per cent for accelerated, plus 5 per cent for private landlord and minus 3 per cent for social landlord claims. This is the check that the local figures on this page are extracted correctly. The every-council CSV includes a row of 50 private landlord claims (65 a year earlier) that the Ministry of Justice does not assign to any council (code 1000). It is part of the national total, so the council rows alone sum to 7,567 rather than 7,617. The 23,635 and 22,352 totals also include social landlord claims, which are in the source file but not in the every-council CSV.
• The national ranking. The percentage ranking is restricted to local authorities in England and Wales with at least 50 private landlord claims in April to June 2025, to avoid small bases producing meaningless percentages. Thirty-two authorities qualify, all of them in England. The every-council CSV below lists all 317 councils in the source file, flags the 32 that qualify and includes the national total. Councils with the same number of extra claims are listed in file order. The Isles of Scilly is not listed separately in the source file. The ranking by number of extra claims covers every local authority in England and Wales.
• Rounding. Percentages in the text are rounded to the nearest whole number, except where a small difference matters (the national comparison and the 7.5 per cent figure for the other eight boroughs), which are given to one decimal place.
• The data file. The CSV below has one row per borough per quarter, with the official local authority code, and no header notes, so it opens cleanly in any spreadsheet or data tool.
• Licence. The underlying Ministry of Justice data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Cite this page

Download the data

The full dataset behind this page covers all ten Greater Manchester boroughs, every quarter from 2003 Q1 to 2026 Q2, split by claim type. It is a plain CSV and it is free to use.

Columns: local_authority; year; quarter (Q1 = Jan to Mar, Q2 = Apr to Jun, Q3 = Jul to Sep, Q4 = Oct to Dec); accelerated_claims; private_landlord_claims; social_landlord_claims; total_landlord_claims (the sum of the three); la_code (ONS local authority code); private_landlord_repossessions.

Download the CSV, 940 rowsDownload every council, CSVDownload the chart, PNG