Tenant Refuses to Leave After Notice to Leave Scotland: What Happens Next

The notice period has expired and the tenant has not moved out. This is not unusual and it is not the end of the process — it is the point where the formal part of the process begins. In Scotland, a notice to leave does not end a Private Residential Tenancy on its own. Only an eviction order granted by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) can do that.

What you must not do is take matters into your own hands. Changing the locks, removing the tenant's belongings, cutting off gas or electricity — any form of self-help eviction is a criminal offence under the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984, carrying prosecution and civil liability. The tenant has a legal right to remain in the property until a Tribunal order is enforced by Sheriff Officers.

Step 1: Apply to the Housing and Property Chamber

Once the notice period has expired, you submit a Form E application under Rule 109 of the Housing and Property Chamber's procedural rules. There is no fee to apply.

Your application needs to include:

• The completed Form E
• A copy of the Private Residential Tenancy agreement
• The notice to leave you served
• Proof of service (Royal Mail tracked-delivery receipt, signed hand-delivery record, or email transmission log with contractual consent evidence)
• Documentary evidence for each eviction ground cited on the notice
• For Ground 12 (rent arrears): full Pre-Action Requirements compliance records — written arrears statements, signposting to debt advice services, repayment plan correspondence, and benefit-delay assessment

You have six months from the expiry date on the notice to lodge this application. Miss the window and the notice lapses — you would need to serve a new one.

Step 2: Serve the Section 11 Notice

At the same time as lodging Form E, you must serve a Section 11 notice on the local authority where the property is located. This is a separate duty under the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003, alerting the council's housing options team that eviction proceedings have been raised. The Section 11 notice is served when you apply to the Tribunal, not when you serve the notice to leave — the timing matters.

You need to send proof that you served the Section 11 notice along with your tribunal application.

Step 3: The Tribunal Process

The Housing and Property Chamber validates your application and serves notice of proceedings on the tenant. The first scheduled event is usually a Case Management Discussion, where both parties attend (often by phone or video) and the Tribunal member assesses the case.

If the facts are not disputed and reasonableness is clear, the Tribunal can grant an eviction order at the CMD. If facts or reasonableness are contested, the case moves to a full evidential hearing with oral testimony and cross-examination.

All 18 eviction grounds are discretionary since the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022. Even if you prove the factual basis of your ground, the Tribunal must separately decide that eviction is reasonable in the circumstances, weighing the landlord's needs against the tenant's personal, health, family and financial situation.

Current processing times for the Housing and Property Chamber average eight to twelve months from application to hearing. This is the reality of the system — there is no fast-track route for private landlords.

Step 4: Enforcement

If the Tribunal grants an eviction order, a 30-day appeal window follows. Once that expires without appeal, you obtain an extract order and instruct authorised Sheriff Officers. The Sheriff Officers serve a Form of charge of removing, which gives 14 days to leave. If the tenant remains, officers serve Form 4: Notice of the date of removal, giving at least 48 hours' notice before carrying out the physical eviction.

Only Sheriff Officers can execute an eviction order. No landlord, letting agent or solicitor has the authority to remove a tenant from the property.

The Practical Timeline

From the day your notice to leave expires to the day you recover vacant possession, the realistic timeline in a contested case is roughly ten to fourteen months: the Tribunal queue (eight to twelve months), the appeal window (30 days), and Sheriff Officer scheduling (two to four weeks). Uncontested cases where the tenant does not respond to the application can move faster, but the Tribunal must still schedule a CMD and satisfy itself that the process was lawful.

Our Notice to Leave in Scotland guide includes a tribunal-application roadmap that walks through every step from the expired notice to the Form E submission, with the evidence package checklist and Section 11 notification template.

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