The Section 6 (Acceptance Notice): A Detailed Guide

In UK property law, a Section 6 Notice, governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1987, is a critical legal instrument. Also referred to as an acceptance notice or more fully a tenant's acceptance notice, it is the method by which leaseholders can formally accept a landlord's offer to sell them the freehold rights to the land on which their property is built.

Of course, we are talking about the leasehold here, and therefore mostly about flats. A Section 6 Notice comes into play when a freeholder wishes to sell their asset, which is to say the land on which residential properties are built. In this scenario, where the building and its leaseholders qualify under the Act, the freeholder must offer the freehold to the leaseholders before selling it to anyone else.

Article updated: September 2026

A Section 6 Notice is the legal notice that the leaseholders would send back to the landlord, to inform them of their intent to buy.

Leasehold and freehold relationships in England and Wales are complicated. Here, we will endeavour to explore the Section 6 Notice and discuss its detail, practical function and significance and answer the common questions related to it.

But if you are involved in any kind of legal trouble or are about to commit to any kind of legal action, professional advice is the normal route.

Introduction

The Section 6 Notice is a legal document, governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, that plays a crucial role in mediating the relationship between landlords (in this case, meaning freeholders) and tenants (leaseholders), should the landlord wish to sell his or her freehold. 

Where the building qualifies, the leaseholders are given a right of first refusal. This is to say that the landlord has to offer them the opportunity to buy the freehold first. This 'first refusal' offer must be done using a Section 5 Notice, which we also have an article on. 

A Section 6 Notice, therefore, is a legal response to a Section 5 Notice. The Section 5 Notice is where a landlord tells their tenants that they wish to sell and offers them first refusal on the purchase. Should enough of the tenants wish to proceed with purchasing the property (the Act calls this the requisite majority), they would need to send the landlord an S6 Notice (also known as an Acceptance Notice) back. 

The complexity of this is obvious. The freeholder could be only one person or entity who has chosen to sell. There are instances where a freehold may consist of only a small number of flats or even a single dwelling, a more typical example would be a block of flats, with 10s or even 100s of separate units and owners.

Therefore any response to a S5 Notice with a S6 will commonly require a great deal of organisation on behalf of the leaseholders.

The Landlord and Tenant Act, 1987

The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1987 was a rather technical Act, concerning the relationship of leaseholders and freeholders in England and Wales. A lot of it was concerned with updates to the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1985 but, as Wikipedia's summary of the Act notes, there were some seemingly small changes regarding the relationship between landlord and leaseholder that have had lasting impact, the main ones being:

1. Leaseholders were given the right to apply to a court to change a lease.
2. Changes to the rules around service charges made the system more accountable and less open to abuse.
3. The right of leaseholders to know the name and contact details of the freeholder.

And of course, what we are looking at here: Section 6 Notices and the right of qualifying leaseholders to buy the freehold, should the freeholder wish to sell.

The Right of First Refusal

We mentioned in the introduction that a single dwelling can be a freehold. This, however, is not a typical arrangement. Under section 1 of the Act, the right of first refusal only applies to a building, or part of one, that contains two or more flats held by qualifying tenants, and those qualifying tenants must hold more than half of the flats in it.

As already stated, the right of first refusal refers to a leaseholder's right to organise with the other leaseholders in a housing block to have the first opportunity to buy the freehold with which their properties are associated, should the landlord decide to sell. It covers the landlord's disposal of the freehold or another interest in the building, although section 4 lists disposals that do not count, such as a gift to a family member or a sale under a compulsory purchase order.

The Section 5 Notice itself sets the deadline for accepting. For a sale by private contract, section 5A requires the notice to give at least two months from the date it is served for the leaseholders to accept, and a further period of at least two months for them to nominate the person who will buy. A sale at auction runs on different periods under section 5B. Missing the deadlines does not free the landlord to sell to anyone on any terms. Under section 7, a landlord who receives no acceptance or no nomination has 12 months to sell the interest that was on offer to someone else. For a sale by private contract, the price and deposit can be no lower than, and the other terms must match, those in the offer notice. Where the offer notice was for a sale at auction, the later sale must still be at public auction on matching terms.

Note: there are scenarios where the right of first refusal does not apply, for instance, if:

• More than half of the building's internal floor area, ignoring common parts, is used or intended for non-residential purposes (section 1(3)).
• Qualifying tenants hold half or fewer of the flats in the building. A tenant of the flat in question who also holds at least two other flats in the same building is not a qualifying tenant, and nor are business tenants, assured tenants and the other tenancy types listed in section 3. Section 3 sets no minimum number of years left on the lease.
• The landlord is an exempt landlord, such as a local authority or a non-profit private registered provider of social housing, or a resident landlord under section 58: one who lives in a flat in a building that is not a purpose-built block and has done so as their only or principal home for at least 12 months.
• The disposal is one that section 4 leaves out, such as a gift to a family member or a charity, a sale under a compulsory purchase order, or a transfer to an associated company that has been associated for at least two years.

What Are the Timeframes Involved?

When a freeholder issues a Section 5 Notice the leaseholders, should they wish to buy the freehold, will have a set period to respond with a Section 6 Notice. The notice itself states that period. For a sale by private contract it must be at least two months from the date the notice was served, under section 5A, and the notice must also give at least two months more for nominating the buyer. For a sale at auction, section 5B allows a nomination period as short as 28 days, so read the dates in the notice rather than assuming two months.

During the acceptance period the landlord cannot dispose of the interest on offer to anyone except a person the tenants nominate, under section 6(1). Once the acceptance notice is served, that restriction runs through the protected period, which ends with the nomination deadline set in the Section 5 Notice or a later date the two sides agree (section 6(4)).

The Nominated Person

The Section 6 Notice itself is served by the requisite majority of qualifying tenants accepting the offer. Nominating the person who will actually buy is a separate step. Under section 6(5) the leaseholders can name that person at the same time as they serve the acceptance notice, or at any point afterwards before the nomination period in the Section 5 Notice runs out. So the leaseholders do not have to have picked a nominee before they accept.

The nominated person is whoever will take the freehold on the group's behalf. The Act does not say who it has to be. In practice this is often a company the leaseholders set up for the purpose, or one or more of the leaseholders themselves. Keeping a record of how the group chose the nominee and who agreed to it is a practical step, not a legal requirement. Once nominated, a person can only be replaced if they have ceased to be able to act, under section 6(6).

Taking legal advice on behalf of the group is normal practice rather than something the Act requires.

What Needs to be Included in a Section 6 Notice?

The Act keeps the legal content of a Section 6 Notice short. Under section 6(3) it is a notice served on the landlord by the requisite majority of qualifying tenants, telling the landlord that the people serving it accept the offer in the Section 5 Notice. The requisite majority means qualifying tenants holding more than half of the available votes, one vote per flat, under section 18A. Section 54 requires the notice to be in writing and to give the names of everyone serving it and the addresses of their flats. So the legal requirements are:

• A written notice, served within the acceptance period, stating that the leaseholders serving it accept the offer in the Section 5 Notice.
• The names of every leaseholder serving the notice and the addresses of their flats, so the landlord can see the majority has been reached.

The following are practical drafting points rather than statutory conditions:

• The date of the notice and the address of the building in question.
• The name and address of the nominated person, if one has been chosen by then. If not, the nomination can follow within the nomination period.
• Signatures from the accepting leaseholders.

The Full Process: Summing Up

To sum everything up, here is the full process from the perspective of the tenants from receiving the Section 5 Notice to issuing a Section 6 Notice.

1. The landlord (freeholder) decides that they want to sell their freehold. If the building and its leaseholders qualify, section 1 says they have to give their tenants (the leaseholders) the first right of refusal for buying the freehold from them. They, therefore, issue the tenants with a Section 5 Notice.
2. On receipt of the Section 5 Notice, the tenants decide that they do in fact want to collectively buy the freehold rights.
3. Enough of the tenants to form the requisite majority accept the offer by serving a Section 6 Notice on the landlord within the acceptance period set in the Section 5 Notice.
4. At the same time, or afterwards within the nomination period, they nominate the person or company that will buy the freehold. Many groups take a solicitor's advice at this point.

None of this changes for a flat bought as an investment property. Whether it came through a buy to let property for sale listing or from below market value properties, its owner holds the lease, counts as a qualifying tenant for the Section 5 Notice and joins the acceptance like any other leaseholder, unless one of the exclusions in section 3 applies, such as holding three or more flats in the same building.

Ready to buy property?

Browse investment properties with prices and gross yields shown for each opportunity.

Get property alerts →