Renters’ Rights Act 2025: Landlord Prep Guide

What Is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025?

If you let a home in England, the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has already changed how you run your tenancies, and more is on the way. This guide sets out what changed, what comes next and what to do now.

The Act received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025, and its main tenancy changes came into force on 1 May 2026. Other parts come later: the PRS Database opens in December 2026, the landlord ombudsman is expected in 2028 and the Decent Homes Standard is due to apply from 2035. It amends the Housing Act 1988, which remains the underlying statute, and represents the most significant change to the private rented sector in England since the Housing Act 1988. (Note: there has never been a Renters (Reform) Act. The Renters (Reform) Bill was an earlier, separate bill that never became law; the law that passed is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025.)

Key changes for landlords:

• Abolition of Section 21 (no-fault eviction) from 1 May 2026
• New and strengthened Section 8 grounds for possession
• Decent Homes Standard to be extended to the private rented sector (not yet in force; the Government's policy statement sets 2035 for both the social and private rented sectors)
• Mandatory membership of a private rented sector ombudsman (scheme not yet open; expected 2028)
• New Private Rented Sector Database
• Restrictions on rent increases

Section 21 Abolished: What Replaces It?

Since 1 May 2026, landlords can no longer recover possession by simply giving two months' notice. (A Section 21 notice served before that date had to be taken to court by 31 July 2026, and that window has now closed. For claims already started, the archive on serving Section 21 correctly and the mistakes that made a notice invalid still applies.) Every possession case now goes through Section 8, citing a specific legal ground.

New and strengthened grounds:

• Ground 1A (new): Landlord intends to sell the property (4 months' notice; not available in first 12 months of tenancy; 12-month re-letting bar after notice expires)
• Ground 1 (strengthened): Landlord or close family member wishes to move in (4 months' notice; not available in first 12 months)
• Ground 8 (strengthened from 1 May 2026): For monthly rent, at least 3 months' arrears at both notice and hearing dates; for weekly rent, 13 weeks' arrears (up from 8). Notice period increases from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. Mandatory if thresholds are met; certain benefit-related arrears may be disregarded: check GOV.UK
• Ground 14 (expanded): Anti-social behaviour, including potential ASB (see the Ground 14 guide)

Detail on the two you are most likely to use: Grounds 1 and 1A, moving in and selling. For the full picture there is a grounds matrix, and for the mechanics, how to serve a Section 8 notice on Form 3A.

Critical implication: You now need a legitimate legal reason to end any tenancy. Good compliance records still matter: a lapsed certificate can count against you on the discretionary grounds, though not on the mandatory ones.

All Tenancies Are Now Periodic

Fixed-term tenancies for new lets are no longer available; see the guide to open-ended assured periodic tenancies. Since 1 May 2026 all assured tenancies are periodic (rolling monthly).

Implications:

• You cannot lock a tenant into a 6 or 12-month term
• Tenants can give 2 months' notice to leave at any time
• No end-of-term certainty

Adapt by: Building strong tenant relationships, acting promptly on Section 8 grounds when needed, and maintaining spotless compliance records.

Decent Homes Standard for Private Rental

The Decent Homes Standard, previously only for social housing, will apply to private rentals. It is not in force yet. The Government published its consultation response and policy statement in January 2026, setting a single new standard that applies from 2035 across both the social and private rented sectors, while encouraging landlords to start works earlier where feasible. A separate and much earlier deadline is planned for energy: the government intends privately rented homes to reach EPC C by 1 October 2030, but that is not law yet. When it lands, properties must meet minimum standards of safety and habitability, including no Category 1 HHSRS hazards, reasonable repair, and reasonably modern heating, kitchens and bathrooms.

Local councils will enforce with civil penalties for non-compliance.

Private Rented Sector Database: registration is coming

Every landlord of an assured or regulated tenancy in England will have to register themselves and each let property on the new PRS Database, which the Government runs as the "Register your rental property" service. It is not open yet: it opens on 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands, then rolls out region by region, and every actively let property must be registered by 14 November 2027. The fee is £65 a year per property. Once registration is required in your region you have 3 months to register. After that, councils can impose a penalty of up to £7,000, or up to £40,000 where an offence is committed, and a court cannot make a possession order while you are in breach of the duty to be registered, except on Ground 7A or Ground 14.

Action: Note your property's region, because the deadline depends on where the property is, not where you live: the West Midlands deadline is 14 March 2027 and the South West, the last region, is 14 November 2027. Keep your property and certificate records in order so registration is a form-filling exercise. The PRS Database registration guide covers what the service asks for.

Rent Increase Restrictions

• No rent increase more often than every 52 weeks
• Must use the Section 13 notice process
• Tenants can challenge at the First-tier Tribunal

LetCompliance keeps the full rent history on the tenancy, so the dates and figures are to hand if a tenant takes an increase to the tribunal.

What Landlords Should Do Right Now

1. 1Audit compliance across all properties: this is now your primary legal defence
2. 2Review tenancy agreements and remove fixed-term clauses for new lets
3. 3Prepare for PRS Database registration
4. 4Watch for the landlord ombudsman: membership becomes mandatory under the Act, but the scheme is not open yet and the Government's roadmap expects that duty to land in 2028. There is nothing to join today.
5. 5Keep the records in one place. LetCompliance gives each property a compliance score and keeps the certificates, rent ledger and notices with it, which is your evidence if possession is ever contested

How the Act is actually enforced

Most guides list the new duties and stop. The enforcement design is the part that decides how much any of it costs you, and it is genuinely new.

The Act splits non-compliance into two categories:

• A breach is non-compliance the council cannot prosecute, but can penalise with a civil penalty of up to £7,000.
• An offence is non-compliance where the council can either prosecute or impose a civil penalty of up to £40,000.

Severity sets the figure. Initial or minor non-compliance sits at the lower end; serious, persistent or repeat non-compliance moves into the £40,000 bracket.

Two things follow. First, this is largely civil enforcement by your local council, not criminal prosecution, which means it is faster and far more likely to actually happen than the old model. Second, only breaches and offences occurring after 1 May 2026 are enforceable under the new restrictions. Councils cannot reach back for earlier conduct.

Worth grasping how ordinary the low end is. Failing to give existing tenants the Renters' Rights Act information sheet is a breach: no court, no criminal record, just a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for a document you could have emailed.

Rent Repayment Orders now reach the owner

This change gets less coverage than Section 21 and is more dangerous to a certain kind of landlord.

A Rent Repayment Order is not a fine paid to the council. It is an order to repay rent to the tenant, or to the local authority where housing benefit was paid, for offences such as letting an unlicensed HMO or unlawfully evicting someone.

From 1 May 2026 the maximum was doubled, and repeat offenders can be required to pay the maximum. More significantly, RROs now extend to superior landlords, not just the tenant's immediate landlord.

That reverses the position established in Rakusen v Jepsen [2023] UKSC 9, and it matters most in rent-to-rent. If you have handed a property to a management company on a guaranteed-rent basis and they let it out badly, you are no longer insulated by the fact that you were not the tenant's landlord. Confirm in writing who holds any licence, and check the register yourself rather than taking it on trust.

Rent increases: the mechanism in full

The Act did not cap rent increases. It capped how often you can make them, and it changed who carries the risk when a tenant disagrees.

The mechanism. No more often than every 52 weeks, with a 53-week correction where the 52-week date would fall more than six days before the anniversary of the first increase after 11 February 2003, using a Section 13 notice on Form 4A for private landlords (Form 4 is the social-sector form), with at least two months' notice, taking effect at the start of a rental period.

The change that matters. The tenant can refer the notice to the First-tier Tribunal, and the tribunal decides the open-market rent, which may come out higher or lower than your figure. Either way, the tenant can never be required to pay more than you proposed, and does not pay the new rent at all until the decision. Nor can the increase be backdated to your original date. Previously a referral could leave a tenant paying a higher figure than the landlord asked for, which deterred most tenants from trying. That deterrent is gone, so referrals are more common.

What that means in practice. Your protection is no longer the tenant's fear of making it worse; it is your evidence. Keep three or four genuine comparables on file before you serve: same area, similar size and condition, let or listed recently. A defensible figure survives a referral. A figure picked because it has been three years does not.

Rent bidding is also banned: you must advertise a rent and cannot invite or accept offers above it.

A working plan for the next twelve months

Not a compliance list. The order things actually bite.

Now. Confirm every pre-May-2026 tenant received the information sheet, because that is a live £7,000 exposure with a one-hour fix. Remove the withdrawn How to Rent guide from your check-in pack and replace it with a written statement of terms (see what an assured periodic tenancy must tell the tenant).

Before your next rent review. Gather comparables and diary the twelve-month date. Serving early by mistake voids the notice.

Before your next tenancy. Rewrite your process around the fact that there is no fixed term. The tenant can leave on two months' notice at any time, so you need to be ready to re-let at any time: photographs on file, a known cleaner, referencing that runs in days.

Ongoing. Treat the paper trail as the product. Every ground you may one day rely on is proved by records made long before you needed them: rent ledgers, repair reports and responses, notices and how they were served.

When the database opens. It opens on 15 December 2026 and becomes required region by region, with the last deadline on 14 November 2027: see the PRS Database registration guide. While you are in breach of the duty to be registered, a court cannot make a possession order except on Ground 7A or Ground 14, so this becomes a hard prerequisite rather than admin.

Where the paperwork lives: the Act turned letting from a contract you sign into a process you evidence. LetCompliance follows the same shape: the written statement of terms sits on the tenancy, the rent ledger works out the arrears that feed Ground 8, and the paid plans draft Section 8 (Form 3A) and Section 13 (Form 4A) notices on the current prescribed forms. Start with one property free, no card needed.