How to Let a Property in the UK 2026: Step by Step

Letting a property is not one task, it is about a dozen, and they only feel overwhelming when you meet them as a pile instead of a line. Taken in order, each one is small. This is that order — the full run from an empty property to a paying tenant and a compliant tenancy — written for a landlord doing it themselves in 2026.

It is deliberately end to end, because the parts people get wrong are usually the hand-offs: the reference that was never chased, the document that was never served, the deposit protected on day 31. Do them in sequence and none of them bites.

General guidance, not legal advice — the figures and duties here are 2026 rules; check GOV.UK for your own case.

Step 1: Get the property ready and priced

Before you advertise, two jobs. First, the property has to be lettable and safe — a valid EPC (minimum band E), a Gas Safety check if there is gas, and the electrics in order with an EICR. Second, the price. Set it to what comparable local properties actually let for now, not what you hope; an overpriced advert is the single biggest cause of a long void, and since the Renters' Rights Act you must advertise a single asking rent and cannot invite bids above it.

Step 2: Advertise and take applications

Now put it in front of tenants — a portal, local groups, your own channels — with clear photos, the rent, the available-from date and what is included. The goal is not just enquiries but the right ones, and a single application link that brings them back to one place beats a scattered inbox. Book viewings from the applications so the person you show round is already attached to their enquiry.

Step 3: Reference the tenant properly

This is the one decision you cannot undo once they move in, so it is worth doing well. Reference the tenant and any guarantor through a regulated UK credit reference agency — credit history, affordability against the rent, adverse data — and run the legal Right to Rent→ check on every adult occupier before the tenancy begins. A gut feeling and a nice chat is not referencing; the check is what stands between you and the arrears case later.

Step 4: Take a holding deposit (optional) the right way

If you want to reserve the property while you reference, a holding deposit is capped at one week's rent under the Tenant Fees Act→ 2019, and there is a 15-day "deadline for agreement" to get the tenancy signed or deal with the deposit. Keep it separate from rent, and remember you cannot ask for any actual rent before the agreement is signed.

Step 5: Generate and sign the tenancy

Every new tenancy in England since 1 May 2026 is a periodic assured tenancy — no fixed term, no assured shorthold. Generate the correct agreement for that regime (an old AST template→ can be void), and e-sign it so it is sealed with an audit certificate recording who signed, when and from where. No printer, no kitchen table, and the version everyone signs is the version you sent.

Step 6: Take the deposit and protect it

Take the deposit — capped at five weeks' rent (six if the annual rent is £50,000 or more) — and protect it in a government scheme (DPS, TDS or mydeposits) within 30 days, serving the Prescribed Information in the same window. Miss the 30 days and you face a penalty of one to three times the deposit and a blocked possession route. Our deposit deadline calculator works out both clocks.

Step 7: Hand over the move-in documents (and prove it)

At or before move-in the tenant must get: the deposit Prescribed Information, a valid Gas Safety certificate, the EICR, the EPC, and the Renters' Rights Act information sheet. Serve them and keep proof you did — gaps here can block a later possession claim. The move-in pack assembles them and records that they were sent.

Step 8: Set up rent collection

Decide how the rent arrives before the first payment is due, not after it is late. Direct Debit that you initiate is the most reliable, because you are pulling the payment rather than hoping the tenant's standing order fires. Set the day, and set up arrears alerts so a missed payment is caught on day one, not day sixty.

Step 9: Run the tenancy

The let does not end at move-in; that is where it starts. From here it is rent in on time, repairs handled and logged, certificates renewed before they lapse, an annual Section 13 if you raise the rent, and a document trail behind all of it. This is the part that is genuinely easier in one place than across a drawer, an inbox and three apps.

The whole thing in one login

Everything above is one connected run, which is exactly how LetCompliance is built: advertise, take applications, reference, e-sign, protect the deposit, assemble the move-in pack, collect rent, chase arrears and score compliance 0–100 — from a single login, free for your first property. You do not need a separate tool for each step, and nothing falls in the gap between them.

Sources