The Renters' Rights Act 2025 is the biggest shake-up to the private rented sector in a generation, and as of 1 May 2026 it applies to every tenancy your agency manages. Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone, fixed terms have vanished, and councils can now levy civil penalties of up to £40,000 for breaches. This guide walks through what is in force, what it means in practice, and the concrete steps letting agents should already be taking to protect their landlords and their business.
What is now in force
The Act received Royal Assent in October 2025 and rolled out in phases. The first phase landed on 27 December 2025, when local housing authorities gained enhanced investigatory and enforcement powers. From that date, councils have been able to impose civil penalties of up to £40,000 for breaches of the new regime, alongside their existing enforcement tools.
The decisive moment, though, was 1 May 2026 — the so-called "big bang" commencement. On that day the new rules applied not only to fresh lettings but to every pre-existing assured shorthold tenancy on your books. There was no grandfathering of old agreements and no phased conversion tenant by tenant. Every managed tenancy became a periodic assured tenancy overnight.
For agents, that means the compliance clock is no longer ticking towards a future deadline. The obligations described below are live, and any tenancy your agency touched before May now sits under the reformed framework whether or not the paperwork has caught up.
Section 21 is abolished
The headline change is the end of the Section 21 "no-fault" eviction. Landlords can no longer regain possession simply by serving two months' notice without a reason. Possession now requires a Section 8 notice supported by a specific legal ground — for example, rent arrears, anti-social behaviour, or the landlord genuinely needing to sell or move in.
This is a fundamental shift in how your agency handles the end of a tenancy. Where you once reached instinctively for a Section 21, you now need to identify a valid ground, gather the evidence to support it, and serve the correct notice with the correct notice period for that ground. Get the ground or the paperwork wrong and a possession claim can fail at court, leaving your landlord out of pocket and out of patience.
- Retire Section 21 entirely: Remove it from your templates and your mental toolkit. It is no longer available for any tenancy.
- Learn the Section 8 grounds: Staff need to know which grounds are mandatory, which are discretionary, and what notice period each carries.
- Build the evidence trail early: Arrears schedules, dated correspondence and inspection records are what win a Section 8 case. Start capturing them from day one, not when a problem escalates.
Every tenancy is now periodic
Alongside the loss of Section 21, all assured shorthold tenancies have converted to periodic assured tenancies. Fixed terms — the familiar six or twelve-month lock-in — no longer exist for new lettings, and existing fixed terms fell away on 1 May 2026. Tenancies now roll on a periodic basis until either the tenant gives notice (typically two months) or the landlord establishes a valid ground for possession.
This reshapes the rhythm of your portfolio. Renewals as you knew them are gone, so any renewal-fee income built around fixed terms needs rethinking. Your tenancy agreements must be rewritten to reflect the periodic structure, and your onboarding process should stop referencing fixed end dates altogether.
Managing a book of purely periodic tenancies puts a premium on good systems. We cover the day-to-day mechanics in more depth in our guide to building a periodic tenancy workflow, but the short version is that agents who track notices, dates and grounds in software rather than spreadsheets will find the new world far less stressful.
Rent increases and the annual Section 13 notice
Rent reviews are now tightly regulated. A landlord can increase the rent only once in any twelve-month period, and only by serving a formal Section 13 notice. Informal "let's agree a new figure" arrangements and rent-review clauses that bypass the statutory process are out. If a tenant believes a proposed increase is above market rate, they can challenge it at the First-tier Tribunal, which can determine the rent.
For your agency, this makes the rent-review calendar a core operational document. Every managed tenancy needs a tracked review date, and you need to serve compliant Section 13 notices at the right moment — no more than once a year, with the correct notice period and format. Miss the window or get the notice wrong and the increase simply will not take effect.
- Set a review date per tenancy: Track the earliest lawful date the rent can next be raised on every property.
- Serve only via Section 13: Standardise on the statutory notice so nothing slips through informally.
- Benchmark before you propose: Because tenants can challenge at Tribunal, evidence that a figure reflects local market rent protects both the increase and your landlord relationship. Our 2026 rental market outlook is a useful starting point for context.
Fairer access and higher standards
The Act closes off several long-standing practices and raises the bar on property condition. Agents need to update their marketing, referencing and property-management processes accordingly.
- No more "No DSS": It is unlawful to discriminate against tenants because they have children or receive benefits. Adverts, application criteria and referencing rules must be scrubbed of any such bias.
- No bidding wars or large upfront demands: Encouraging prospective tenants to bid above the advertised rent is banned, as is demanding several months' rent in advance.
- Right to request a pet: Tenants can request to keep a pet, and landlords cannot unreasonably refuse. Build a clear, documented process for handling and responding to pet requests within a reasonable timeframe.
- Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law: The Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law now extend to the private rented sector, introducing fixed timescales to investigate and address serious hazards such as damp and mould. Slow repairs are no longer just a service issue — they are a legal exposure.
The repair timescales in particular reward agencies that run tight maintenance operations. Being able to log a reported hazard, dispatch a contractor and evidence that you acted within the required window is exactly the kind of audit trail councils will expect to see. This is where a system such as LettingGuru, which ties maintenance tickets to timestamps and contractor records, earns its keep.
The PRS Database and Ombudsman
The Act creates two new pillars of oversight. A Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman will handle tenant complaints and provide binding resolutions, and a Private Rented Sector Database will hold a central record of landlords, their properties and their compliance status. Landlords are required to register their details, and the database is expected to underpin much of the councils' enforcement activity.
As the managing agent, you are the natural party to shepherd landlords through registration. Many will not follow the detail of the legislation and will assume — reasonably — that you are handling it. Making sure each of your landlords is properly registered, and keeping their records accurate, protects them from penalties and cements your value as their agent.
Exact go-live timing for some elements is still being confirmed by government, so treat sign-up dates as expected rather than fixed and check the current position before advising clients. What is not in doubt is the direction of travel: registration and accessible complaint-handling are becoming baseline requirements for operating in the sector.
The Information Sheet duty and audit trails
One immediate, easily missed obligation deserves its own spotlight. Where a tenancy was an assured shorthold tenancy on 1 May 2026, the landlord must give the tenant the government's official Information Sheet explaining the new rules — and it had to be sent by 31 May 2026. Failure to do so carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000 per breach.
If your agency has not confirmed that the Information Sheet went out to every affected tenant, that is the first thing to check after reading this article. Because the deadline has passed, you want documented proof of what was sent, to whom, and when. If any tenant was missed, take advice on remedial steps rather than leaving a gap in the record.
More broadly, meticulous record-keeping is now your best defence across the whole regime. With councils able to impose penalties up to £40,000, the difference between a defensible position and an expensive one is usually the quality of your audit trail. Track notices, possession grounds, rent-review dates, repair timescales, registration status and document delivery across the entire portfolio, and keep it in one place you can produce on demand.
Getting there is less about heroics and more about the right tooling. If you want to see how a single platform can track compliance across every tenancy — from Section 13 rent reviews to Awaab's Law repair deadlines — explore the LettingGuru feature set or pricing, and note that alongside these changes, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is reshaping your landlords' obligations too. You can start a free trial today — it is self-serve, runs for 30 days, and needs no card to get going.