On 13 July 2026, the fee to issue a possession claim in the county court rose from £404 to £415. The warrant of possession fee — what you pay to send county court bailiffs — went from £148 to £152.
Eleven pounds and four pounds. In isolation, not news.
What makes it worth writing about is the timing, and what it reveals when you add it to everything else a possession claim now costs a landlord.
The full cost, honestly
The court fee is the smallest line on the bill, and it always was. Here is the realistic shape of a contested possession claim in 2026.
The notice period comes first. Under Section 8, most grounds require up to four months’ notice before you can even file. That is four months of a tenancy you have already decided to end.
Then the court queue. Average time from claim to possession order is running at roughly 34 weeks. That is about eight months, on top of the notice period.
Then enforcement, if it comes to that. A possession order is not the same as having your property back. If the tenant does not leave, you need a warrant and a bailiff appointment, which has its own wait.
And underneath all of it, the rent. If the claim is arrears-driven — and Ground 8 claims usually are — you are not collecting rent through most of that period. On a Guildford property at £1,800 a month, twelve months of process is £21,600 of rent you will very likely never see, against a £415 court fee.
That ratio is the point. Landlords ask us about court fees. They should be asking about time.
Why the increase matters anyway
Two reasons.
The first is direction of travel. This was an inflation-linked uplift applied across the justice system, not a targeted change aimed at landlords. Which means it will happen again, routinely, while the underlying delays stay where they are. The cost of using the courts rises; the usefulness of the courts does not.
The second is that it arrives during the most difficult transition the possession system has been through in decades. Section 21 is gone. Every claim now needs a ground, evidence, and a hearing that the accelerated procedure used to avoid. More claims, more hearings, same courts.
What to actually do about it
Treat arrears as a two-week problem, not a two-month one. By the time a claim is worth issuing, you are already looking at a year and thousands of pounds. Almost every arrears case that ends well ends because someone made contact in the first fortnight.
Get the paperwork right before you need it. Deposit protection, gas safety, EICR, the Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet — a defect in any of these can stall a claim that would otherwise be straightforward. Fixing them costs very little now and can cost months later.
Price rent protection and legal expenses cover against the real numbers. A lot of landlords last reviewed that cover when a possession took three months. It does not take three months any more.
Do not let a claim be your first plan. It should be the plan you were prepared for and did not need.
Court fee changes effective 13 July 2026. General information, not legal advice.
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