diff --git a/tests/suites/controller/enable_ha.sh b/tests/suites/controller/enable_ha.sh
index 4a45e0ea2bb..d2972299ff0 100644
--- a/tests/suites/controller/enable_ha.sh
+++ b/tests/suites/controller/enable_ha.sh
@@ -25,51 +25,6 @@ wait_for_controller_machines() {
 	fi
 }
 
-wait_for_controller_machines_tear_down() {
-	amount=${1}
-
-	attempt=0
-	# shellcheck disable=SC2143
-	until [[ "$(juju machines -m controller --format=json | jq -r '.machines | .[] | .["juju-status"] | select(.current == "started") | .current' | wc -l | grep "${amount}")" ]]; do
-		echo "[+] (attempt ${attempt}) polling started machines during ha tear down"
-		juju machines -m controller 2>&1 | sed 's/^/    | /g' || true
-		sleep "${SHORT_TIMEOUT}"
-		attempt=$((attempt + 1))
-
-		if [[ ${attempt} -gt 25 ]]; then
-			echo "enable-ha failed waiting for only 1 started machine"
-			exit 1
-		fi
-	done
-
-	attempt=0
-	# shellcheck disable=SC2143
-	until [[ "$(juju machines -m controller --format=json | jq -r '.machines | .[] | .["juju-status"] | select(.current == "stopped") | .current' | wc -l | grep 0)" ]]; do
-		echo "[+] (attempt ${attempt}) polling stopped machines during ha tear down"
-		juju machines -m controller 2>&1 | sed 's/^/    | /g' || true
-		sleep "${SHORT_TIMEOUT}"
-		attempt=$((attempt + 1))
-
-		if [[ ${attempt} -gt 25 ]]; then
-			echo "enable-ha failed waiting for machines to tear down"
-			exit 1
-		fi
-	done
-
-	if [[ "$(juju machines -m controller --format=json | jq -r '.machines | .[] | .["juju-status"] | select(.current == "error") | .current' | wc -l)" -gt 0 ]]; then
-		echo "machine in controller model with error during ha tear down"
-		juju machines -m controller 2>&1 | sed 's/^/    | /g' || true
-		exit 1
-	fi
-
-	if [[ ${attempt} -gt 0 ]]; then
-		echo "[+] $(green 'Completed polling machines')"
-		juju machines -m controller 2>&1 | sed 's/^/    | /g'
-
-		sleep "${SHORT_TIMEOUT}"
-	fi
-}
-
 wait_for_ha() {
 	amount=${1}
 
@@ -97,6 +52,16 @@ wait_for_ha() {
 	fi
 }
 
+wait_for_controller_no_leader() {
+	# We need to wait for the Dqlite cluster to be broken (loss of quorum),
+	# before we start waiting for the backstop behaviour to be pending
+	# (see wait_for_controller_leader below).
+	# shellcheck disable=SC2143
+	until ! [[ "$(juju exec -m controller --unit controller/leader uptime | grep load)" ]]; do
+		echo "[+] waiting for no controller leadership"
+	done
+}
+
 wait_for_controller_leader() {
 	# Since the institution of Dqlite for leases, we need to wait until the
 	# backstop workflow has run before we are functional with a single
@@ -139,13 +104,12 @@ run_enable_ha() {
 	juju remove-machine -m controller 1
 	juju remove-machine -m controller 2
 
-	wait_for_controller_machines_tear_down 1
+	wait_for_controller_no_leader
+	wait_for_controller_leader
 
 	# Ensure that we have no ha enabled machines.
 	juju show-controller --format=json | jq -r '.[] | .["controller-machines"] |  reduce(.[] | select(.["instance-id"] == null)) as $i (0;.+=1)' | grep 0
 
-	wait_for_controller_leader
-
 	destroy_model "enable-ha"
 }