You pay rent every month, but you couldn't say who your landlord is or where you would send them a letter. If nobody has ever given you a section 48 notice, an address in England and Wales where you can serve papers on your landlord, your rent may not be legally due yet. Maybe the letting agent went bust, the person you pay is a first name on WhatsApp, or someone you have never met has written to say they bought the house.
That helps if you are ever chased for arrears, and it is easy to misuse. The rent is only paused. The day your landlord gives you a proper address, every month on hold falls due at once, so keep paying, or keep the money set aside and ready to hand over.
What is a section 48 notice?
Section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 says your landlord must give you, by notice, "an address in England and Wales at which notices (including notices in proceedings) may be served". Notices in proceedings means court papers. Under section 54, the notice has to be in writing.
Until your landlord does this, section 48(2) says any rent "otherwise due" is "treated for all purposes as not being due". In plain English, your landlord can't count that rent as owed, or sue you for it, until you have an address where you could serve court papers on them.
It covers private renters in England, along with most other residential tenants. It doesn't apply while a court or tribunal has appointed a receiver or manager to collect your rent. In Wales, it doesn't apply to occupation contracts.
Do you have to pay rent if the landlord hasn't given an address?
In the end, yes. Section 48 suspends the rent, and the suspension lifts the moment your landlord complies. Six months of rent that was "not due" becomes six months of arrears overnight.
So keep paying. If you doubt where your money is going, for example after a sale, set each month's rent aside in a separate account instead, and ask Remedy to check your paperwork before you rely on section 48. Then, when an address does arrive, you can pay the lot at once.
This is a different rule from withholding rent over repairs, which carries its own risks.
Where to look for your landlord's address for service
Check your paperwork first. The notice needs no special form and doesn't have to mention section 48. An address in England and Wales written into the tenancy agreement itself can count. The Court of Appeal accepted exactly that in Rogan v Woodfield Building Services Ltd [1995] 1 EGLR 72. Look in these places:
- Your tenancy agreement. Check the parties section near the top.
- Your written statement of terms. If you agreed your tenancy on or after 1 May 2026, your landlord had to give you one before you signed up. The 2026 regulations say it must include an address in England and Wales where you can serve notices, including court papers, on the landlord. A compliant written statement of terms is likely to count as a section 48 notice.
- Your deposit paperwork. The prescribed information must give the name and address of the landlord, or of the agent who protected the deposit.
- Old letters and notices. In Drew-Morgan v Hamid-Zadeh [1999] 26 EG 156, the Court of Appeal held that a Section 21 notice giving the landlord's name, care of her agent's address, was enough. But an address given for one purpose only, such as "send replies about this letter to" or an address for service in court papers, has been held not to count.
The address doesn't have to be your landlord's home. A letting agent's office in England and Wales can count if it was given to you as your landlord's address, not just printed on the agent's own letters. If every address you have is abroad, or you have no address at all, section 48 has probably not been met.
How to find out who your landlord is
Section 1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 lets you ask in writing for your landlord's name and address, and whoever collects your rent or acts as the landlord's agent must reply in writing within 21 days. Failing to answer without a reasonable excuse is a criminal offence, and the court can fine them.
If the landlord turns out to be a company, section 2 lets you ask for the names and addresses of its directors and secretary, again with 21 days to reply. You can also get the title register from HM Land Registry, which shows who owns the property. That is usually your landlord, though not always.
No reply within 21 days? Report it to your council. Councils can prosecute these offences under section 34 of the 1985 Act. Landlord registration on the new private rented sector database is due to start on 15 December 2026, region by region, but there is no confirmed way yet for tenants to search it.
These offences don't pause your rent. Only section 48 does that.
Can a landlord evict you for rent arrears without giving an address?
Not on the rent arrears grounds. Grounds 8, 10 and 11 in Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 all depend on rent that is "lawfully due". Rent that section 48 has suspended isn't lawfully due until your landlord complies. In Drew-Morgan, the Court of Appeal said the landlord's right to the rent, and to possession for not paying it, is on hold until the notice is given.
The catch is timing. A Section 8 notice that gives your landlord's address in England and Wales may itself fix the problem, and then all the paused rent is owed. A court can also let a landlord give the address part way through a claim, so this point usually delays an arrears claim rather than ending it. Ground 8 is mandatory. If at least 3 months' rent (13 weeks' if you pay weekly or fortnightly) is unpaid both when a notice is served and at the hearing, the court must make a possession order. Stop paying for a year and you could hand your landlord a winning case.
Section 48 also does nothing against grounds that aren't about rent, such as Ground 1 or 1A when your landlord moves in or sells, Ground 6 for redevelopment, or anti-social behaviour. If you already have an arrears notice and were never given an address, that point belongs in your Section 8 defence.
Remedy can check your tenancy paperwork for an address for service, and draft the section 1 request to whoever collects your rent if there isn't one.
