Letting to a Company in 2026: Why It Is Not an Assured Tenancy

A tenancy granted to a company is not an assured tenancy. In England a tenancy is assured only if the tenant, or each joint tenant, is an individual, and the tenant or at least one of them lives in the property as their only or principal home (section 1 of the Housing Act 1988). A company is not an individual and has no home. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 works through the assured tenancy, so most of it does not reach a company let. The let can still have a fixed term and a break clause, there are no Section 8 grounds and no Section 13 notice, and neither the deposit protection rules nor the Tenant Fees Act apply.

What governs a company let is the contract, common law and the statutes that never depended on the tenancy being assured. The people who live there are still protected from eviction without a court order, and the gas safety rules still apply to the home. The safe course is to treat the electrical and alarm rules as applying too, and to make a Right to Rent check on every adult who will live there.

Below is each rule with its source, read on 25 October 2026. Everything here is for England. Wales and Scotland have their own systems.

Why a company cannot be an assured tenant

Section 1(1) of the Housing Act 1988 sets three conditions, and a tenancy is assured only if it meets all three. A company let fails the first two:

(a) the tenant or, as the case may be, each of the joint tenants is an individual; and

(b) the tenant or, as the case may be, at least one of the joint tenants occupies the dwelling-house as his only or principal home

A limited company is a legal person, but it is not an individual and it has no home. Three points follow from the wording:

• A company and a person as joint tenants is still not assured. Condition (a) needs each joint tenant to be an individual.
• The company paying the rent does not make it a company let. If the employee signs as the tenant and the employer pays or guarantees the rent, the employee is the tenant. If the employee lives there as their home, that tenancy is normally assured, with every Renters’ Rights Act rule.
• The Renters’ Rights Act left the test alone. The 2025 Act did not amend section 1(1). On 25 October 2026 legislation.gov.uk showed its only change to section 1 in subsection (5).

What the Renters’ Rights Act changes for a company let

Little in the let itself. Each of the Act’s main tenancy rules is written for assured tenancies, or for lettings that could create one. The change that reaches furthest is for a landlord whose company tenant lets the home on to other people:

Not in force yet: the database and the ombudsman

The Private Rented Sector Database and the Landlord Ombudsman have not started. On 25 October 2026 legislation.gov.uk showed the sections behind them in force only for specified purposes, and the draft database regulations had not been made. Both are written for landlords of assured and regulated tenancies (section 63 of the 2025 Act), so as drafted neither will cover a company let. If you also have assured tenancies, you will register those properties once the database duty starts, whatever happens to the company let.

What governs a company let instead

The tenancy agreement does most of the work: the term, the rent and how it is reviewed, any break clause, who may live there, the deposit and when it comes back, and how notice is given. Statute fills in what the contract cannot take away. Some duties reach a company let and some do not:

A company let is not a safe way round the safety rules. The gas check applies whoever signed the agreement, and on the electrical and alarm rules the only safe reading is that they apply too.

Ending a company let

A company let ends under its own terms and common law, not under Section 8.

• A fixed term ends on its last day, or earlier under a break clause if the agreement has one. The break clause date calculator works out the earliest date and the last day to serve, and the break clause guide covers the ways a notice fails.
• A periodic company let is ended by a notice to quit. Under section 5 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, a landlord’s notice to quit a dwelling must be in writing, contain the prescribed information and be given at least four weeks before it takes effect. The prescribed information tells the occupier that the landlord must get a court order before they can lawfully be evicted, and where to get advice (the Notices to Quit etc. (Prescribed Information) Regulations 1988). Four weeks is the floor, not the rule. At common law the notice must also run for at least one full period of the tenancy (a month for a tenancy that runs month to month, a quarter for one that runs quarter to quarter, half a year for one that runs year to year, or longer if the agreement says so) and end on the first or last day of a period. On a quarterly let, four weeks is never enough.
• Serve it where it counts. A UK company can be served by leaving the notice at, or posting it to, its registered office (Companies Act 2006 s.1139(1)). An overseas company registered in the UK is served at the address of the person in the UK authorised to accept service for it, or failing that at its place of business in the UK (s.1139(2)). You can also use any address the agreement gives for notices.

When someone is still living there

The end of the tenancy does not end the need for a court. Section 3 of the 1977 Act covers exactly this case: a tenancy that was not statutorily protected has ended, and a person who was lawfully living there at the end still lives there. The owner may recover possession from them only through court proceedings. Section 2 says the same of forfeiting the lease for a breach while anyone is lawfully living there. The claim is a possession claim in the County Court under Part 55 of the Civil Procedure Rules, with no Section 8 ground to prove. The accelerated procedure is not open to it: that was for Section 21 claims on assured shorthold tenancies (rule 55.11).

Changing the locks on an employee who has not left is unlawful eviction under section 1, and since 1 May 2026 the council can fine up to £40,000 for it (section 1A). How often illegal eviction reaches court is counted here.

Deposits on a company let

There is no duty to protect a deposit on a company let. Since 1 May 2026 the protection rules apply to a deposit taken in connection with an assured tenancy (Housing Act 2004 ss.212 and 213), and a company let is not one. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 does not cap the deposit or ban fees either: its definition of a tenancy is an assured tenancy, a student letting under Schedule 1 paragraph 8 of the 1988 Act, or a licence to occupy housing (section 28). The amount, where it is held, what can be deducted and when it comes back are whatever the agreement says, so write all four down.

Worked example: what the label is worth

The label matters because the numbers change if it is wrong. Take a flat let at £2,000 a month, which is £24,000 a year:

The cap and the penalty come from the Tenant Fees Act 2019, Schedule 1 paragraph 2 and the Housing Act 2004, s.214. If an occupier later shows the let was really theirs, the right-hand column is the one that applies.

Right to Rent: check the people who live there

Treat Right to Rent as applying, with the checks on the people, not the company. A landlord must not authorise an adult to occupy a property under a residential tenancy agreement if that adult is disqualified by their immigration status, and that can include adults the agreement does not name (Immigration Act 2014 s.22(1) and (4)). An unnamed adult counts where no reasonable enquiries were made about who would live there, or where the enquiries showed, or should have shown, that they were likely to live there (s.22(6)). The code of practice in force from 1 October 2026 says a check should be carried out on all adult occupiers before the agreement is entered into, whether or not they are named in it.

On a company let that means three things:

1. 1Ask the company for the name of each adult who will live there before the start date, and check each one.
2. 2Write into the agreement that the company tells you before anyone new moves in. The Home Office’s landlord guide says that where occupiers move in at different times, each adult must be checked before they take up occupation.
3. 3Keep the follow-up date for anyone with a time-limited right to rent.

The Act leaves out tied accommodation, which an employer provides to an employee in connection with a contract of employment (Schedule 3, paragraph 10). The Home Office guide adds that the scheme applies where the employee is expected to pay rent. Neither says how the exclusion treats a home the employer rents from a landlord, so the safe course is to check every adult who will live there. The civil penalty is up to £10,000 per occupier for a first breach and £20,000 for a repeat within three years. The 2026 checks guide sets out the ways to make each check.

The risks when the occupier is not the tenant

A company let splits what the law usually treats as one person: the company signs and pays, someone else lives there. Most of the risk sits in that gap.

• You do not choose who lives there. Unless the agreement says otherwise, the company decides. Name the permitted occupiers, require notice of any change, and keep a Right to Rent record for each.
• A sub-tenancy can outlast the company let. If the agreement allows sub-letting and the company grants its employee a tenancy that is itself assured, that tenancy carries on with you as the landlord when the company let ends (Housing Act 1988 s.18). Say in the agreement that the occupiers live there by the company’s permission only, and that sub-letting is not allowed.
• A company that lets the home on to others is a landlord too. Guaranteed rent and rent-to-rent operators take a company let and let the rooms, or the whole home, to people who live there. Where those people live there as their main home, their tenancies are normally the company’s assured tenancies, with every Renters’ Rights Act rule on the company as their landlord. Check whether the use makes the property an HMO that needs a licence, and who holds it. Since 1 May 2026 the tribunal can order a superior landlord who committed the offence, such as having control of an HMO that should be licensed and is not, to pay up to two years’ rent (Renters’ Rights Act 2025 s.103).
• Ask the lender and the insurer first. Some buy-to-let lenders accept a let to a company only as an exception. Check the mortgage terms, get the lender’s consent in writing before you agree, and check that your landlord insurance covers a company tenant.
• A company that runs its business there may have a business tenancy. Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 applies where the tenant occupies the premises for the purposes of a business (section 23), and a tenancy it covers does not simply end at the end of its term (section 24). If the company will use the property for its business, and not only as a home for its staff, take advice before you agree.
• The label has to match what happens. If the company is the tenant on paper but the occupier found the property, pays the rent from their own account and deals with you as the tenant, the occupier can argue they are the real tenant, and an assured one. Keep the company the real party: invoices to the company, rent from its account, notices to its registered office.
• The company is the covenant. Look the company up on Companies House, which shows its registered address, when it was set up, its directors and its filed documents. A director’s personal guarantee must be in writing and signed by the guarantor, or by someone they authorise (Statute of Frauds 1677, s.4), and the deed of guarantee guide sets out the wording.
• The company can leave before its staff do. An employee who stays after the let ends is protected by section 3 of the 1977 Act, so the court order route above applies. Agree in the contract what the company owes if its staff do not leave on time.

Keeping the record

A company let needs the same paper trail as any other: the agreement, the certificates given to the occupiers, each Right to Rent check, the rent and any notice, each with its date.

Keep the company let with the rest of your lets. LetCompliance runs the whole let, and a company let fits with one limit. Enter the company as the tenant: the rent and each charge sit on its tenancy, and the signed agreement and the other documents sit against the property. On the deposit card, mark protection not applicable with the reason “Let to a company, not an assured tenancy”, so the record matches the law. The gas and electrical certificates come with a reminder before each expires.

The limit is the occupiers. There is no occupier role: the app keeps each Right to Rent check, with the evidence and the date to check again, on a person on the tenancy, and anyone added there is recorded as a tenant. Keep the occupiers off the tenancy and their checks in your own file, so the record names only the company, and expect the property’s Right to Rent line to show as missing, because a company has no check to record.

The agreement builder writes an assured periodic agreement, so a company let needs its own: upload the agreement your solicitor drafted and send it for e-signature with an audit certificate, on the trial and every paid plan.