The Renters’ Rights Act: my verdict one year after Royal Assent

At 19:41 on 27 October 2025, during the dinner-break adjournment in a debate on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, a hereditary peer notified the House of Lords that the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 had received Royal Assent. It was one of five Acts on the list that evening, which included the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Act and the General Cemetery Act.

The government press release said the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 gave England’s 11 million private renters “the most significant increase to their rights in a generation”, with the then Housing Secretary, Steve Reed, adding: “For decades, the scales have been tipped against tenants. Now, we’re levelling the playing field between renters and landlords. We are tearing down the walls of injustice in the private rented sector and building a future where tenants are protected, respected and empowered.”

Leaving the political rhetoric to politicians, in this blog post I give my interim thoughts on how it’s panned out in practice, in the year since Royal Assent, by going through each of the key reforms in detail and discussing the impact on tenants and landlords.

Why interim thoughts? It’s still very early days, as the tenancy reforms came into effect less than six months ago, and we don’t yet know how the appellate courts will interpret the Act’s many complexities.

This post is about the impact of the RRA. For how to comply with it in practice, my bestselling book, The Good Landlord Handbook*, published by Penguin, covers every stage of a tenancy under the Renters’ Rights Act. If you have questions, you can ask me at the twice-monthly livestreams in my membership, The Independent Landlord Hub.

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Bill: my verdict in October 2024

>> Related Post: My written evidence to the Renters’ Rights Public Bill Committee, October 2024

The Renters’ Rights Act in 2026: my verdict in a nutshell

Before getting into the detail, here is how the Renters’ Rights Act has landed in 2026.

Since the tenancy reforms took effect on 1 May 2026, every stage of a tenancy has been highly regulated, and most breaches can result in a civil penalty from the local council of up to £7,000, rising to £40,000 for offences.

Even so, the reforms have bedded in with less drama than many landlords feared. For those of us with long-term tenants in unfurnished houses, day-to-day life is much the same.

However, it’s not the case for student lets and HMOs, where the end of fixed terms has made life particularly difficult for landlords.

The most visible sign of the changes so far is the steady stream of rent review challenges at the First-tier Tribunal. It’s too early for the higher courts to have ruled on the Act’s many other ambiguities, which means the tricky questions are still open.

Landlords have become more cautious about who they let to, now that a tenancy can only be ended on one of the revised Section 8 grounds. Rent guarantee insurance is being promoted hard as the answer.

Letting agents have had to adapt to the ban on rent in advance, which has made aligning rent payments to the first of the month a bureaucratic exercise. It has also made letting to overseas students far riskier, unless they pay for a professional guarantor.

The tenancy reforms were just the first step. The PRS Database, the Ombudsman, Awaab’s Law and the Decent Homes Standard are still to come. It’s very much a case of “watch this space”.

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act landlord fines and civil penalties explained

Has the Renters’ Rights Act brought the promised “simpler regulation”?

No, the Renters’ Rights Act hasn’t simplified anything.

It was a claim oft-repeated by government ministers during the Bill’s passage through Parliament, for instance in the Report Stage debate in the House of Commons, that it “will ensure that good landlords enjoy simpler regulation”.

Housing law is very complex, and the above diagram shows some of the layers of legislation that apply to residential tenancies in England.

Simplification would have entailed a codifying and consolidating Act, which is not what we were given. No doubt because of the amount of parliamentary time it would swallow up.

Instead, the RRA’s 269 pages add a dense layer on top of the existing statutes, statutory instruments and common law.

In total, the Renters’ Rights Act amends 34 UK Parliament Acts, ranging from the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to the Tenant Fees Act 2019.

The Renters’ Rights Act: 2026 tenancy reforms, six months on

The tenancy reforms in the Renters’ Rights Act came into force as a “big bang” on 1 May 2026. On this date, all existing Assured Shorthold Tenancies became Assured Periodic Tenancies, and a number of other reforms were introduced.

In this section I give my thoughts on how the key tenancy reforms have been bedding in since 1 May.

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act Guide: The 12 key provisions

Rolling periodic tenancies, which tenants can terminate at any time

The abolition of fixed term tenancies by Section 1 RRA, coupled with the right for tenants to terminate a tenancy by serving a notice to quit with up to two months’ notice under Section 20, are two key provisions in the Act which “rebalance” the relationship between landlords and tenants.

Impact on tenants

Tenants now have the freedom to end a tenancy whenever they like, and are not committed to a minimum period. There is no exception for students, and they can serve a notice to quit to expire at Easter, leaving the landlord with a void over the summer.

However, a notice to quit by a joint tenant will terminate the tenancy for the other tenants. This means that, in reality, joint tenants have no security of tenure for a fixed period, as they can be required to leave their home if one of their housemates wants to leave.

Impact on landlords

For the vast majority of landlords, including myself, who have long-term tenants in unfurnished houses, this has made no difference.

However, anecdotally, I have heard that these new rules have enabled some tenants to sign up for a tenancy of a furnished property, only to serve notice the same day, treating it effectively as a short-term let. This is particularly an issue for room-only HMOs where turnover has increased.

For instance, one HMO landlord emailed me to say: “The RRA is having a huge impact on HMOs, we currently have 6 rooms coming available in October, unheard of before the Act! The majority are people who have moved in since May.  And 50% of our enquires on SpareRoom are asking for rooms for 1-2 months! Turnover like this is a nightmare for us as landlords (operationally) but also for tenants who stay long term and will have constant move ins/outs”. 

Incidentally, this was entirely predictable. In fact I said in October 2024 that a six month minimum term would prevent some tenants using properties as “Airbnb light”.

For student landlords, it has been very difficult, as there is no longer any certainty when the tenants will wish to move out. That makes planning difficult, including scheduling refurbishment and knowing with certainty when the voids will be. Longer voids lead to increased costs for landlords. It’s not just the loss of rent, but having to pay council tax and unoccupied property insurance.

I predict that many student landlords will leave the student market, and focus on letting to non-students on a room-only basis instead of a joint tenancy, to avoid having costly empty properties.

>> Related Post: The rules for tenants to end a tenancy with a valid notice to quit

>> Related Post: How letting to students has changed with the Renters’ Rights Act

Requirement to give a “written statement of terms”

Section 12 RRA requires landlords to issue a written statement of terms to their tenants before entering into a new tenancy. The written statement needs to contain the prescribed information set out in the Written Statement Regulations, which includes the details of the parties, the start date, rent, bills, deposit, ending the tenancy, safety and compliance information, and the tenants’ rights regarding pets and disability improvements.

The written statement can be a standalone document or a tenancy agreement, and this has caused confusion among landlords, judging by the number of emails and questions I’ve had about it.

Most solicitors and letting agents have been incorporating the written statement into the new Assured Periodic Tenancy agreements, but it is still possible to have an oral tenancy with a written statement that is not a tenancy agreement.

If landlords have “home-brewed” tenancy agreements, they need to check that they contain the prescribed information.

Local authorities can issue a civil penalty of up to £7,000 if landlords fail to issue a written statement of terms before the tenancy is entered into.

My take

It would have been simpler to require landlords to enter into written tenancy agreements, rather than requiring a “written statement of terms”.

>> Related Post: The Written Statement of Terms under the Renters’ Rights Act

>> Related Post: Guide to the Renters’ Rights Act Assured Periodic Tenancy

Ban on rent in advance

The rules on rent in advance in Section 8 and Section 9 are confusing and overly complicated, with rent in advance banned as a breach of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 if it is paid or asked for before the tenancy is entered into. It is merely unenforceable if more than one calendar month’s rent is required in advance after the tenancy is entered into.

Impact on tenants

The benefit to tenants is that they will not be required to pay more than one month’s rent in advance.

However, the rule adversely impacts the tenants who used to offer rent in advance because they couldn’t pass referencing any other way: overseas students, the self-employed, people with a thin credit history or no UK footprint.

They now need a guarantor, and if they don’t have a suitable UK-based one, they will need to pay for a professional guarantor service.

Impact on landlords and letting agents

The first rent payment has become unnecessarily bureaucratic if a landlord or agent wants more than one month’s rent at the start, say to align the rent day to the 1st of the month.

Beyond the paperwork, we see what I predicted in 2024, ie landlords have become more conservative about who they let to, because one key tool they used to manage a risky applicant has gone.

>> Related Post: The rules banning rent in advance in Renters’ Rights Act

Ban on rental bidding

Section 56 RRA requires landlords to state the proposed rent in any listing or advertisement, and not to ask for or accept rent above this figure.

Impact on tenants

Tenants now know that the rent in the listing is the most they can be asked to pay, and that an offer above it can’t be accepted even if they make it.

What the ban doesn’t do is stop a landlord choosing between applicants on any other basis, so the competition for a popular property hasn’t gone; it has just stopped being about who can pay the most.

Impact on landlords

Landlords can no longer accept a higher rent if the property attracts more applicants than expected.

In October 2024 I predicted that some would respond by advertising at a higher rent and letting applicants bid down to it.

Whether that has happened is difficult to tell, as there isn’t comprehensive data that tracks the relationship between the asking rent and the achieved rent.

>> Related Post: The rules about asking rents and rental bidding in Renters’ Rights Act

Tenants’ right to challenge initial rent and rent increase

Rent can now only be increased once a year by a Section 13 notice using Form 4A, with at least two months’ notice.

Tenants can challenge the proposed rent at the First-tier Tribunal, and can also challenge the initial rent in the first six months of a tenancy.

Under the new Section 14ZB of the Housing Act 1988, the tribunal can confirm the proposed rent or set a lower one, but never a higher one, and the new rent runs from the date of the decision rather than the date in the notice.

Impact on tenants

Challenging a rent increase costs £47, involves submitting a 22 page form, delays the increase until after the tribunal makes the “rent determination”, and can’t make things worse for the tenant.

It is rational for tenants to challenge a rent increase, even where the increase is reasonable, as they can’t lose anything other than the £47 fee. This is why I expected a steady stream of challenges when I wrote about this in October 2024, and that is what has happened.

The decisions so far suggest tenants do best when they bring evidence of what similar properties have actually let for, rather than what they were advertised at.

Impact on landlords

Landlords have learned that the First-tier Tribunal prefers achieved rents over asking rents, and that a landlord’s own comparables do not help if they are drawn from a better part of town.

Large catch-up increases have been allowed where the evidence supported them, and trimmed where it didn’t.

The practical lesson is for landlords to pitch the increase at a figure they can evidence, because they will get that figure or less, never more.

Whilst falling short of “rent control”, I think that this will have a dampening effect on rent increases, which is no doubt what was intended.

So far, the wait times at the FTT have not been excessive, with most cases dealt with on the papers, but it remains to be seen whether this will continue.

The government announced in September 2026 that the forum for initial rent determinations will move from the FTT to the HMRC’s Valuation Office Agency. It is unclear how landlords will be able to appeal first instance rent determination decisions made by the VOA. Currently, landlords unsatisfied with a decision of the FTT can appeal it at the Upper Tribunal.

>> Related Post: How to complete Form 4A to increase rent (Section 13 notice)

>> Related Post: Section 13 rent increase challenges: First-tier Tribunal process and cases

Implied right for tenants to have a pet

Tenants now have an implied right to keep a pet, provided they ask in writing and the landlord has no reasonable grounds to refuse. The landlord has 28 days to answer, longer if they need to ask a freeholder, and the Act says in terms that a lease which prohibits pets, or a freeholder who says no, is a good enough reason.

Impact on tenants

Tenants can now ask and expect an answer. However, the right is only for “tenants”, which means that landlords can refuse to accept applicants with pets, without needing to give a reason.

Tenants can’t yet challenge a refusal in any practical sense. This is because the right is a matter of contract law, and legal action in the courts is expensive. This will change when the PRS Landlord Ombudsman service launches in 2028, and tenants will be able to make complaints for free.

Impact on landlords

This was one of the more controversial parts of the Renters’ Rights Act for landlords, especially as the right to insist on pet damage insurance was removed before Royal Assent. Consequently, a landlord’s protection is the 5 weeks’ deposit, a pet policy and a reference from the previous landlord.

It’s still early days. The LRG Summer 2026 Lettings Report (August 2026) said that 93% of the landlords surveyed hadn’t received a pet request since 1 May. LRG also found that 28% of landlords said tenant-funded pet damage insurance would make them more confident about approving a pet.

The real tests will come later. Tenants who have asked for a pet since May won’t have moved out yet, so it will be some time before we know whether tenancy deposits of up to 5 weeks’ rent are sufficient to cover the cost of any additional damage from pets.

Also, until the PRS Landlord Ombudsman launches, we won’t get an indication of how many tenants feel their landlord’s refusal is unreasonable.

>> Related Post: Tenants’ rights to have pets in Renters’ Rights Act

>> Related Post: PRS Landlord Ombudsman: Renters’ Rights landlord redress scheme

Abolition of Section 21, and introduction of revised Section 8 grounds

Section 21 “no fault” evictions were abolished on 1 May 2026. Landlords who wish to recover possession of their property now need one of the grounds in Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988, as revised by the Renters’ Rights Act, and submit Form 3A.

This was the headline reform, and the one that received the most attention in the media.

Impact on tenants

Tenants have more certainty now that Section 21 has gone. A landlord can no longer end a tenancy because the tenant challenged a rent increase, asked for repairs, or over some minor falling-out. If the landlord wants possession, there has to be a ground for it, and the tenant will know what it is.

That said, it is wrong to say that “no fault” evictions were abolished. This is because landlords can still recover possession under Ground 1 (landlord or family moving in) and Ground 1A (selling up). As they are both mandatory grounds, the tenant has no defence if the landlord provides evidence. The protection for tenants is that the notice period can’t expire in the first year of the tenancy, and landlords are prohibited from re-letting for 12 months after the notice period ends, known as the “restricted period”.

>> Related Post: Grounds 1A and 1: How to evict tenants to sell up or move in

Impact on landlords

Grounds 1 and 1A have been popular with landlords who either didn’t have the necessary paperwork for a valid Section 21 notice, or who weren’t sure if they had the right paperwork, due to uncertainty over pre-occupation gas safety records. Incidentally, this issue will be considered by the Supreme Court in 2027: Harker v Hubert and Muca v El Amrani.

Grounds 1 and 1A carry no requirement to have issued a pre-occupation gas safety certificate.

With Section 21, it was relatively straightforward to evict tenants for refusing access for repairs or safety checks, or for subletting without permission. The RRA does not include mandatory grounds for these, which means landlords would need to convince a judge it is fair to evict for breach of the terms of the tenancy agreement under Ground 12. This continues to be an area of concern for landlords.

There are a number of “anti-gaming” duties in what is now Section 16E of the Housing Act 1988 which try to prevent landlords from mis-using possession grounds or purporting to terminate a tenancy otherwise than through the Section 8 process. Local authorities can impose civil penalties of up to £7,000 for most of the breaches, with those involving a breach of the restricted period rule or “knowingly or recklessly” misusing a possession ground being offences for which the maximum civil penalty is £40,000.

I am sure that the interpretation of Sections 16E, 16J and 16M of the Housing Act 1988 will be an area of litigation.

How are the county courts faring?

It’s still a little early to see whether the county courts are coping with the new regime. According to the Ministry of Justice, the median time from a landlord’s claim to repossession in April to June 2026 was 27.1 weeks, down from 27.9 weeks a year earlier.

Landlords had until 31 July 2026 to apply for an order for possession for Section 21 notices served before 1 May 2026, so it’s too early to see either what impact the switchover has had, or the delays for notices served under the Renters’ Rights Act regime. The next figures come out on 12 November 2026.

For comparison, when I wrote my verdict on the Renters’ Rights Bill in October 2024, the median was 25.4 weeks.

The Implementation Roadmap promised a new “digital end-to-end possession service in the county courts” within 18 months of Royal Assent, ie by April 2027.

We await implementation of the promised reforms for the private rented sector, as landlords are still having to use Possession Claims Online and paper.

Also, the government confirmed in February 2026 that the reforms won’t extend to an administrative possession route for landlords with their paperwork in order, as it the government “considers it important that a tenant has the opportunity to attend a possession hearing as this is vital for tenants’ access to justice, especially in the new tenancy system where landlords must always evidence that possession grounds have been met”.

This means that unlike Section 21, every Section 8 claim will continue to need a court hearing.

>> Related Post: Section 8 grounds for possession: up to date landlord guide

>> Related Post: How to evict tenants using Section 8 with Form 3A

The Good Landlord Handbook

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Still to come

Significant parts of the Renters’ Rights Act have not yet been implemented. I go through what’s still to come here:

The PRS Database aka “Register your rental property” service (Dec 2026 – Nov 2027)

The PRS Database is due to start rolling out on a regional basis between 15 December 2026 and 14 November 2027.

The “Register your rental property” service will require landlords to provide extensive information on their properties, and the fee per property is £65 per year. There will be no facility to set up a direct debit for the annual renewal, and landlords cannot delegate it to their agents in its entirety, as they have to start and end every property registration.

Impact on tenants

It is not yet known what tenants will have access to, once the Database is launched, but the intention is that it will show whether a landlord is registered and a property compliant.

GOV.UK says: “In future, tenants will be able to use the service to see if a landlord is compliant with key legal requirements, helping them make better informed decisions about where they rent. The information that will be available to tenants will balance landlords’ privacy concerns with the need for tenants to make better informed rental choices. We’ll publish a list of information that the public will be able to access at a later stage.”

In my October 2024 verdict, I raised the concern that landlords’ addresses would end up visible to every rent-to-rent operator and service provider in the country. Let’s see whether landlords’ legitimate concerns over privacy are respected.

Impact on landlords

The £65 annual fee is considerably more than the £28.58 over three years mentioned in the Renters’ Rights Bill Impact Assessment published in November 2024.

I beta-tested the “Register your rental property” service, and it took me about 10 minutes to register each property. Therefore, the average landlord with under 5 properties will be able to register their properties in under an hour, assuming they have the information and documentation to hand.

However, registering on the database will be very time-consuming for landlords with large portfolios, and they will need to ensure that the registrations are renewed by the same date each year.

Landlords will also need to remember to update the register when information and documentation changes, eg new rent, a change in the number of occupants and a new gas safety certificate.

Impact on letting agents

It is going to be very time-consuming for letting agents to help landlords register their rental properties, within tight timescales.

There will be no bulk upload facility on launch, and the letting agent won’t be able to pay the fee on the landlord’s behalf.

>> Related Post: PRS Database: how to register your rental property

The PRS Landlord Ombudsman (2028)

Every private landlord in England will be required to join the PRS Landlord Ombudsman, a mandatory redress scheme for tenants’ complaints about their landlord, with binding decisions. The Implementation Roadmap says membership will be compulsory from 2028, after the Database has rolled out, with a scheme administrator appointed 12 to 18 months beforehand.

The fee is “to be confirmed closer to launch”. The Impact Assessment assumed £6 per landlord per property, which, going by the Database annual fee, is likely to be higher.

Impact on tenants

Until the Ombudsman exists, several of the Act’s new rights have no practical means of enforcement short of the county court: a tenant whose pet request is refused, or who thinks their landlord has ignored a repair, has nowhere cheap to go.

The PRS Landlord Ombudsman will be in addition to the redress schemes that letting agents are obliged to belong to, and this duplication may be confusing for tenants whose landlords use agents.

Impact on landlords

This will be another compulsory membership and another annual fee on top of the £65 for the Database: a quango with the power to order a landlord to apologise, pay compensation or put something right.

The Ombudsman is for tenants to make complaints about landlords, and there is no forum for landlords to complain about tenants. This isn’t a level playing field.

In October 2024 I said I liked the idea in principle, because hopefully it would enable problems to be nipped in the bud, and for an independent third party to tell a tenant that the landlord is not in the wrong. However, that would only work if it “provides a quick and reliable method of resolving disputes”.

The Housing Ombudsman, which is likely to run the version for private landlords, takes six months to a year on a formal investigation for social housing. Let’s hope the timescales are quicker for the PRS.

>> Related Post: PRS Landlord Ombudsman: Renters’ Rights landlord redress scheme

Awaab’s Law (2027 or 2028)

Awaab’s Law has applied to social landlords since 27 October 2025, and Sections 60 and 61 RRA allow it to be extended to the private rented sector by regulations.

It will be an implied term of the tenancy that landlords will have a set number of days to investigate, give a written summary and fix hazards, once they become aware of them. Emergencies will have a separate timetable.

We don’t yet know what the precise deadlines and requirements will be for the PRS, as MHCLG is currently carrying out a consultation on extending Awaab’s Law to private tenancies.

Impact on tenants

Assuming that Awaab’s Law comes into effect after the launch of the PRS Landlord Ombudsman, tenants will be able to complain to a third party for free that their landlord isn’t complying with the deadlines to investigate and remedy hazards.

Impact on landlords and letting agents

Whilst good landlords are likely to repair hazards promptly, Awaab’s Law will require a paper trail. Letting agents will also need to ensure that their terms of business state that they will comply with the deadlines. We won’t be able to assess the full impact until the details are confirmed.

>> Related Post: Awaab’s Law for private landlords explained

Decent Homes Standard (2035)

The RRA provides for a Decent Homes Standard to be applied to the private rented sector for the first time, enforced by councils with civil penalties.

The government consulted on the content of the standard in summer 2025 and proposed that it comes into force in 2035 (or 2037), while saying it expects landlords to start work earlier. The first step on the way, the new HHSRS with 21 hazards, came into effect in June 2026.

Impact on tenants

Once it comes into force in 2035, there will be extensive minimum standards for properties in the PRS.

Impact on landlords

Although we have had some information about the standard to be applied to the PRS, the questions I asked in 2024 remain: how will decency be assessed, by whom, and what happens to the landlord whose property needs a back-to-brick refurbishment to meet it while a tenant is living there?

>> Related Post: The Decent Homes Standard for the private rented sector

Final thoughts

Three promises were made for this Act on its way through Parliament: simpler regulation, a level playing field, and that good landlords had nothing to fear.

A year on, the first has not been kept: the Renters’ Rights Act adds a complex new layer to the already complex housing law layer cake.

As for the second, the playing field has been levelled in the places the government cared about: tenants can’t be evicted unless the landlord can show they have one of a narrow set of grounds, rent increases are capped at what a landlord can prove is the open-market rent, and fixed terms are banned.

However, a landlord has no forum to complain about a tenant, there is no mandatory ground when a tenant refuses access or sublets. The rent in advance rules are a mess, and without fixed terms, letting to students has become uneconomic. There has been a “rebalancing”, but the playing field isn’t level.

The jury is still out on the third, as we don’t yet know whether local authorities will enforce the various rules fairly and consistently.

What good landlords have to fear is what happens if they don’t get the paperwork right, and the local authority imposes a civil penalty.

It’s still very early days, as disputes on the meaning of the tenancy reforms have not yet reached the courts.

Most of the story is still to come. The Database roll-out starts in December 2026, the Ombudsman in 2028, Awaab’s Law and the Decent Homes Standard later still.

My approach, as someone who spent 25 years as an in-house lawyer helping companies manage risk, is to avoid costly and stressful litigation. Where the Act is ambiguous, interpret it in the tenant’s favour, keep a paper trail, and you are unlikely to end up in court. This is the approach I’ve taken in my book, The Good Landlord Handbook.

One thing is certain: this is now a golden age for housing law litigators. It is housing lawyers, rather than landlords or tenants, who will benefit most from another layer on the housing law layer cake.

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