Murphy v Maguire: Section 21’s brief reprieve cut short

Murphy v Maguire: Section 21’s brief reprieve cut short

Beth Donaldson & Kati Savtsenko, Property Litigation

In our previous quarterly update, we considered Cassell & Cassell v Sidhu & Sidhu and the tentative optimism it appeared to offer landlords facing historic defects in gas safety compliance.

That decision suggested there may still be limited scope for an initial defect to be remedied through subsequent compliance, providing something of a last glimmer of hope for landlords seeking to rely on Section 21 as the regime enters its final year. However, the recent County Court appellate decision in Murphy v Maguire sets down a markedly more restrictive approach and demonstrates just how unsettled this area of law has become.

In Murphy v Maguire (County Court, November 2025), the landlord sought possession relying on a Section 21 notice served on 28 January 2025. No gas safety inspection had been carried out prior to the commencement of the original tenancy in 2015 nor the most recent tenancy agreement signed on 1 June 2022. The first and only inspection took place several years later on 8 November 2024. The tenant argued that this failure constituted a permanent bar on the service of a valid Section 21 notice. HHJ Murch accepted that submission, holding that the absence of any pre-tenancy inspection amounted to a substantive breach of Regulation 36(6)(b) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, which could not be cured by later compliance.

Distinguishing from Trecarrell House v Rouncefield, the Court held that this was not a case of late service of an existing certificate but a complete failure to carry out the required pre-tenancy safety check. In doing so, the judge declined to follow the reasoning in Cassell. The claimant landlord had not carried out two gas safety inspections during the defendant’s occupation. Nevertheless, HHJ Murch held that whilst HHJ Clarke’s approach in Cassell was not relevant to the test he was required to apply, to the extent that it was, he declined to adopt her analysis on the effect of subsequent certification for the purposes of Regulation 36(6)(b). Instead, HHJ Murch aligned the decision with the approach in Byrne v Harwood-Delgado, under which certain failures at the outset of a tenancy are treated as permanently fatal to reliance on Section 21.

Murphy v Maguire is a County Court appellate decision and is therefore not binding, though it may be persuasive. What is now clear is that judicial opinion at this level is diverging significantly on whether defects in gas safety compliance are capable of remedy for Section 21 purposes.

With Section 21 due to be abolished under the Renters’ Rights Act on 1 May 2026, any further appellate clarification from higher courts is likely to come too late to provide meaningful guidance beyond the parties to those appeals, or those landlords who have served a Section 21 prior to the deadline date. This decision leaves landlords and practitioners to navigate an increasingly inconsistent body of authority in the final months of the regime.

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