How to Rent Booklet England: Withdrawn 1 May 2026

Update — How to Rent was withdrawn on 1 May 2026

GOV.UK withdrew the How to Rent guide on 1 May 2026. Its own publication page now reads "This publication was withdrawn on 1 May 2026", and it is retained only as evidence for Section 21 notices that were served before that date. You no longer serve How to Rent on a new tenant, because Section 21 — the notice it used to protect — has itself been abolished.

For a tenancy starting today the replacement duty is a written statement of terms, which the landlord must give within 28 days of the tenancy beginning (Renters' Rights Act 2025, s.16D; civil penalty up to £4,000 for failing to). The rest of this guide is kept for landlords who still have a live pre-May-2026 Section 21 claim and need to evidence that the correct edition was served at the time — the historical rules are described in the past tense throughout.

Primary source: How to rent: the checklist for renting in England on GOV.UK (now marked withdrawn).

Not legal advice. Statutory wording and court forms change. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland use different materials. See our editorial policy for how we treat tenancy content.

What “How to rent” was, and why it mattered

“How to rent” was the government’s plain-English guide for people renting a home in England. It covered deposits, repairs, safety, illegal fees, ending a tenancy, and where to get help. For private landlords using assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs), giving the correct edition at the right time was a core step for years. Under the Deregulation Act 2015 framework it was central to whether a Section 21 notice could be relied on — serve the wrong edition, or fail to prove service, and the no-fault notice failed.

That is exactly why its withdrawal follows Section 21’s abolition: the duty existed to support Section 21, and with Section 21 gone for new notices from 1 May 2026, GOV.UK withdrew the guide. If you are reading this because you have a pre-May-2026 Section 21 claim still moving through the courts, the rest of this section explains the rules as they stood then.

When did you have to provide How to rent? (historical)

For new ASTs in England, landlords had to provide the current booklet at the start of the tenancy — in practice, when the tenant was entitled to move in or as part of pre-move-in paperwork. This mattered because it gated Section 21; it never gated Section 8.

The workflow that wins a pre-May-2026 dispute is still about proof:

Joint tenancies: one PDF to all named tenants (same email with all addresses, or individual proofs). Guarantors were never a substitute for giving tenants the booklet.

For a tenancy starting now, none of this applies. You do not serve How to Rent; you give a written statement of terms within 28 days of the tenancy beginning. Our documents a landlord must give a new tenant checklist covers the current move-in sequence.

The old 28-day update rule (historical)

While the guide was live, when MHCLG published a revised How to rent, landlords had to provide the new version to tenants on periodic tenancies (or when the tenancy became periodic) within 28 days of publication. This mattered only for keeping a future Section 21 notice valid.

Since the guide was withdrawn on 1 May 2026 there are no further editions to reissue, and no Section 21 notice to protect, so the update duty no longer bites. Do not re-serve the withdrawn guide as if it were a live requirement — it is not.

How to rent vs your tenancy agreement

The tenancy agreement sets rent, term, notice, pets and specific obligations. How to Rent was never a second tenancy agreement — it was statutory information, and the two were not meant to contradict each other on fundamentals such as illegal fees. If your clauses conflict with consumer law or tenant rights, the agreement can be partly unenforceable even if it is signed. That point still holds for the written statement of terms you now give instead.

Best practice: make sure the binding agreement and any information you give the tenant say the same thing about deposits, fees and repairs.

How to rent vs deposit Prescribed Information (do not mix them up)

Do not confuse the two: How to Rent is gone, but the deposit Prescribed Information duty is very much still in force and is one of the few things that genuinely bars possession. Missing PI triggers a 1 to 3× deposit penalty, and an unprotected deposit or unserved PI bars a Section 8 possession order on every ground except 7A and 14 (returning the deposit cures it). See our deposit protection guide and Prescribed Information deep dive.

One email, the right attachments is still the clean pattern for a new tenancy: the written statement of terms + deposit PI + gas/EICR/EPC, with a read receipt where appropriate.

Section 21, the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and the withdrawal

For years, failure to give the correct How to Rent at the right time was a frequent reason a Section 21 Form 6A possession failed. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 abolished Section 21 no-fault notices for new use from 1 May 2026 in England; possession now runs through Section 8 grounds only.

Because the whole point of the How to Rent duty was to keep a Section 21 notice valid, GOV.UK withdrew the guide on the same day. So the honest answer to "is How to Rent still a precondition for my notice?" is: there is no Section 21 notice for it to be a precondition of. It never gated Section 8 and does not now. Do not re-serve it on a new tenant expecting it to help a future possession claim — it will not.

Read Section 21 abolished, what happens now and our Section 21 guide for the wider picture.

Proof and evidence: what actually wins disputes

Courts and deposit adjudicators care about documents, not memory.

Keep:

Weak evidence: “We always send it” without logs. Strong evidence: one email thread per tenancy start with attachments listed.

Data protection: you process tenant emails under UK GDPR, pair this with our tenant privacy notice guidance.

Letting agents: who is responsible if it goes wrong?

Your landlord terms with the agent should say explicitly that the agent will provide How to rent and prove service. If the agent forgets, you may still be liable to the tenant and enforcement bodies, indemnities in agency contracts help recover money but do not erase tenant-facing failure.

On exit, export all compliance emails; portal lock-out has cost landlords possession cases.

Common mistakes (for pre-May-2026 claims)

If you are evidencing a historical Section 21 notice, these are the failures that still cost cases:

For a tenancy starting now, the mistake to avoid is different: forgetting the written statement of terms within 28 days, which carries a penalty of up to £4,000.

Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland

England How to rent does not satisfy Welsh Renting Homes information duties, Scottish PRT requirements, or NI rules. Use jurisdiction-correct materials for each portfolio region.

LetCompliance: one vault for booklets, certs, and dates

LetCompliance gives you a single per-property place to store your tenancy paperwork — the written statement of terms, Gas CP12, EICR, EPC, and deposit records — with reminders before certificates expire. We e-sign the tenancy and serve the move-in documents through a free tenant portal with a tribunal-grade audit certificate, so service is timestamped rather than argued about later. If you still hold a pre-May-2026 Section 21 file, your old How to Rent proof lives in the same vault as evidence. That is how “thin” admin becomes auditable compliance.

Further reading: 2026 landlord compliance checklist · Right to Rent checks guide · Editorial policy