Tenant-facing coverage of the Renters’ Rights Act tends to focus on what renters gained. For a landlord running a letting business, the more useful question is different: what actually needs to change in how you operate, and in what order?
This article answers that question directly, rather than restating tenant protections from the landlord’s side of the desk.
What’s live now, and what it actually requires you to do differently
Section 21 is gone, and the tenancy structure changed with it
Since 1 May 2026, Section 21 can no longer be used for new possession notices in England’s mainstream private assured tenancy system.
New assured tenancies are periodic from the outset, with no fixed end date. Most existing assured shorthold tenancies converted automatically on 1 May.
If your standard tenancy agreement still treats a fixed term as something that will simply expire, or assumes Section 21 will be available afterwards, it is outdated.
A landlord wanting possession now has to rely on an appropriate statutory ground under Section 8 and, if the tenant doesn’t leave voluntarily, be prepared to prove that ground in court. The government’s guide to assured periodic tenancies for landlords sets out the new structure.
That is more than a change of form. It means decisions such as selling, moving back in, dealing with serious arrears or responding to tenancy breaches now need to be planned around specific grounds, notice periods and evidence.
Deposit compliance now matters directly to possession
Deposit protection was already important before the 2026 reforms. The difference now is how directly it can affect possession.
For most Section 8 grounds, a court will not make a possession order unless the landlord has complied with the relevant tenancy-deposit protection requirements, including protecting the deposit through an approved scheme and giving the required prescribed information.
There are exceptions — notably Grounds 7A and 14 for anti-social behaviour — and a landlord may in some circumstances restore the ability to seek possession by properly dealing with the deposit before the order is made.
The government’s post-May possession guidance explains those conditions.
The operational lesson is straightforward: don’t wait until you need possession to discover whether the deposit file is complete.
If you have older tenancies where the records are uncertain, audit them now.
Rent increases now use one formal route
For an assured periodic tenancy, rent normally cannot be increased during the first year.
After that, increases can generally happen only once every 12 months and must use the formal Section 13 process, with Form 4A and at least two months’ notice.
Even where landlord and tenant are content with the proposed increase, the formal process still needs to be followed.
Old rent-review clauses therefore shouldn’t be treated as an alternative route for future increases under the post-May system.
If your management software still assumes that an annual percentage uplift written into the tenancy automatically changes the rent, that workflow needs revisiting.
Rental advertising and applicant handling have new rules
Written adverts and written offers now need to state a specific proposed rent.
You or your agent cannot ask for, encourage or accept an offer above that amount. Rent bidding is no longer something a landlord can allow simply because an applicant volunteers to pay more.
Applicant screening also needs reviewing.
The new discrimination rules mean landlords and agents cannot discourage or prevent someone from renting because they receive benefits or have children, subject to limited statutory exceptions.
Affordability checks are still permitted. You can still set a genuine income requirement.
What you cannot do is simply disregard benefit income because it comes from benefits rather than employment, or apply criteria designed to exclude benefit recipients or families. The government’s rental-discrimination guidance for landlords explains the distinction.
That makes this a referencing-policy issue, not merely an advertising issue.
Rent in advance is now tightly restricted
This is another area where old landlord practice may now be unlawful.
You or your agent cannot ask for, encourage or accept rent before both sides have signed the tenancy agreement.
Between signing and the tenancy beginning — the pre-tenancy period — a landlord can normally require up to:
- one month’s rent where rent will be paid monthly; or
- 28 days’ rent where it will be paid more frequently.
There are limited exceptions, including some council homelessness placements and social or supported housing.
Once the tenancy is running, rent can’t simply be required ahead of the contractual due dates as a way of obtaining several months’ security upfront.
The government’s rent-in-advance guidance for landlords sets out the current rules.
If your previous risk model involved asking an applicant for six or twelve months’ rent upfront, that procedure needs to stop.
Pet requests now follow a formal process
A tenant asking to keep a pet must make the request in writing.
You then normally have 28 days to respond in writing, and you cannot refuse without a fair reason.
If you reasonably need more information about the animal, the deadline isn’t simply extended automatically to 35 days. Once the tenant supplies that information, your final response is due by whichever is later:
- the remainder of the original 28-day period; or
- seven days after the additional information is supplied.
The government’s pet-request guidance for landlords gives examples of reasons that may and may not be reasonable.
For a landlord with several properties, this is worth turning into a small internal process rather than improvising each request.
New tenancy paperwork also changed
This is easy to miss because it isn’t as headline-friendly as Section 21.
For a new tenancy created on or after 1 May 2026, landlords must give the tenant specified written information about the key terms before signing the tenancy agreement or otherwise agreeing the tenancy.
It can be included in the tenancy agreement itself or provided separately.
The government’s written-information guidance explains what has to be included.
This is different from the Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet that was principally used for existing pre-May written tenancies during the transition.
If you’re still using an old AST template with a few clauses deleted, this is another reason to replace it properly rather than patching it indefinitely.
What to actually review in your letting business now
For a landlord already operating in September 2026, this is the practical audit I would run:
| Area | What to check now |
|---|---|
| Tenancy agreements | No operative fixed-term end date; no reliance on Section 21; prescribed written information included or supplied correctly |
| Deposit files | Deposit protected correctly, prescribed information served, evidence retained |
| Rent increases | Form 4A / Section 13 workflow in place; no automatic rent-review process |
| Advertising | One stated rent; no bidding or acceptance of higher offers |
| Referencing | Benefit income treated as income; no blanket exclusions involving benefits or children |
| Rent in advance | No pre-signing rent requests; pre-tenancy payment limits understood |
| Pet requests | Written request, response deadline, reasons and decision recorded |
| Possession planning | Correct Section 8 ground, evidence and notice period identified before action begins |
That is the immediate business impact of the Act in practical terms.
What’s next — and what already has a date
Not every Renters’ Rights Act reform is operational yet, but some future measures are now considerably more concrete than they were when the Act first passed.
Landlord registration begins in December 2026
This changed on 9 September 2026.
The government has confirmed that the new Register your rental property service will launch on 15 December 2026, beginning in the West Midlands and then rolling out across England region by region over the following 12 months.
When a region is called forward, landlords with occupied properties there will have a three-month period to register.
All landlords actively letting property are expected to have registered by 14 November 2027.
The government’s registration announcement also says later legislation will require unoccupied rental properties to be registered before marketing, with registration numbers eventually appearing on adverts.
So this is no longer something to file mentally under “sometime in the future”.
If you own in the West Midlands, it becomes a live compliance task this year. Elsewhere, it’s worth making sure your ownership and property information is organised before your region is called forward.
The Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman
Mandatory landlord membership of the new Ombudsman is still expected in 2028.
It isn’t yet something landlords can simply sign up to today, but businesses with poor complaint records or informal dispute handling have time to improve those systems before external redress becomes part of the compliance framework.
Awaab’s Law for private renting
Awaab’s Law already imposes fixed hazard-response timescales in social housing.
The Renters’ Rights Act allows equivalent requirements to be extended to private renting, but as of September 2026 the private-sector implementation date remains to be confirmed and subject to consultation.
There is no defensible private-landlord commencement date to put in a compliance calendar yet.
The government’s Renters’ Rights Act implementation roadmap remains the useful reference point for that phase.
Energy efficiency: 1 October 2030
The new private-rental energy-efficiency standard is due to apply from 1 October 2030.
Covered new and existing private rented homes will need to achieve the future EPC C-or-equivalent standard under the reformed EPC methodology, unless a valid exemption applies.
The policy includes a £10,000 cost cap and a new dual-metric approach, so landlords planning major refurbishment before 2030 should consider those future standards rather than improving a property twice.
Decent Homes Standard: 2035
The reformed Decent Homes Standard is scheduled to become enforceable in the private rented sector from 2035.
It will introduce a common standard covering serious hazards, repair, facilities, thermal comfort and damp and mould.
The government’s new Decent Homes Standard policy statement confirms both the 2035 standard and the earlier 2030 energy requirement.
2035 is not a grace period for ignoring poor property condition. Current repair, fitness and HHSRS duties continue in the meantime.
What should you prepare for now, and what can wait?
There is a useful distinction between complying early and preparing early.
You don’t need to behave as though the 2035 Decent Homes Standard is already enforceable.
But if you’re replacing windows, heating systems, insulation or kitchens in the next few years anyway, ignoring confirmed future standards can mean paying twice.
Likewise, you cannot join a landlord Ombudsman that isn’t yet operational, but you can make sure complaints, repair requests and tenant communications are already recorded properly.
And you cannot register nationally before your part of the registration service opens, but you can make sure you know:
- exactly which properties you own;
- which are currently let;
- who legally owns each one;
- what licences apply;
- what safety records are current; and
- what contact information will need maintaining.
The objective isn’t premature compliance. It’s avoiding a scramble when commencement actually arrives.
An agent doesn’t make this someone else’s job
If you let through an agent, confirm directly that their systems have been updated.
That includes:
- tenancy templates;
- prescribed written information;
- rental advertising;
- applicant screening;
- rent-in-advance procedures;
- rent increases;
- pet requests;
- deposit records; and
- possession notices.
Legal responsibility doesn’t transfer identically for every obligation — some legislation can place duties on landlords, agents or both — so it is too simplistic to say the landlord personally carries every statutory duty regardless of delegation.
But commercially, the sensible principle is straightforward:
know who is responsible for each task, and verify that it has actually been done.
Paying an agent isn’t evidence of compliance.
What this has actually meant in practice
The Act has made private letting more process-driven.
There are more mandatory steps, more prescribed notices, more record keeping and less room for informal arrangements where the law now requires a particular procedure.
For a professionally run letting business, that shifts compliance further towards ordinary operational management: templates, calendars, document storage, renewal reminders and audit trails matter more.
It is still too early to isolate the Act’s effect on landlord numbers from every other pressure affecting the market — finance costs, taxation, property values, repair costs and wider regulation all matter too.
So claims that the Act has either caused a wholesale landlord exodus or had no effect at all should be treated cautiously. For an individual landlord, the more useful question is not what the national narrative says but whether the portfolio still works commercially under the rules that now apply.
This is primarily an England reform
The core tenancy reforms described above — the abolition of Section 21, assured periodic tenancies, the new Section 8 structure, Section 13 process, rent bidding, rent in advance and pet requests — relate to England’s private rented sector.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland continue to operate their own tenancy systems.
There is one important qualification: the Renters’ Rights Act’s protections against rental discrimination involving benefit claimants and families with children also extend beyond England to Scotland and Wales, although they operate within those nations’ separate housing frameworks.
So a landlord with property in more than one UK nation still needs separate compliance systems rather than treating England’s post-2026 model as the default everywhere.
This article provides a general overview of the Renters’ Rights Act’s practical impact for landlords in England as at 9 September 2026 and does not constitute legal advice. Requirements can depend on the tenancy and property, and implementation dates can change. For a specific portfolio or dispute, consider checking current official guidance or taking professional advice.
