Renters’ Rights Act 2026: The Complete Landlord Guide

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England only — Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate regimes

I have been a landlord through every one of the last decade’s regime changes, and this is the biggest of them. Not because any single rule is unmanageable — most of them are — but because the whole shape of a tenancy changed on one day, and a lot of what landlords “know” about lettings stopped being true overnight. In the Landlord Alliance community the same handful of questions come up again and again, and almost all of them stem from the same misunderstanding: people think they were supposed to do something on 1 May. Mostly you weren’t. The conversion was automatic.

This page is the complete position as it stands in August 2026, written for landlords rather than lawyers. Where something is not yet in force I say so plainly, because a lot of what you’ll read elsewhere describes provisions that are still years away as though they applied today.

Is it the 2025 Act or the 2026 Act?

A small thing that tells you whether a source knows what it’s talking about

Both, in a sense. The statute is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 — it received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. But almost nothing happened until the main provisions were commenced on 1 May 2026, which is why most people search for and talk about the “Renters’ Rights Act 2026”.

If you are citing it in correspondence, in a notice, or to a court, it is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. If you are talking to another landlord, “the 2026 changes” is what they’ll understand. Both are fine in their place. What isn’t fine is the number of pages still calling it the “Renters’ Reform Bill” or the “Renters’ Reform Act” — those were earlier, different, abandoned pieces of legislation, and a page using those names has not been updated in over a year.

What changed on 1 May 2026

The old rule, the new rule, and whether it needs anything from you

What	Before 1 May 2026	Now	Action needed?
Tenancy type	Assured shorthold tenancy (AST)	Assured periodic tenancy. ASTs abolished entirely	None — conversion was automatic
Fixed terms	6 or 12 months typical	Of no effect. All tenancies are periodic	None
Rent periods	Any period	Monthly or shorter. Quarterly and annual rent no longer possible	Check any quarterly arrangements
Section 21	Two months, no reason needed	Abolished	None available
Possession	Section 21 or section 8	Section 8 grounds only	Learn the grounds
Rent increases	Rent review clause or section 13	Section 13 only, once a year, Form 4A	Rent review clauses are now ineffective
Tenant’s notice	Usually one month	Two months, unless you agree less in writing	None
Pets	Landlord’s discretion	Tenant may request; consent not to be unreasonably refused; 28 days to reply	Have a process
Benefits and children	Widely refused	Discrimination unlawful	Review adverts and referencing
Rent in advance	Six or twelve months common	Capped at one month before the tenancy begins	Change your process
Rental bidding	Common	Banned — you must advertise a price and cannot accept more	Change your process
Deposit protection	Barred section 21 only	Bars possession on almost all section 8 grounds too	Audit every deposit now

The deadlines — including the two that have passed

Where you actually stand in August 2026

Date	What	Status
27 Oct 2025	Royal Assent	Done
30 Apr 2026	Last day a section 21 notice could be served	Passed
1 May 2026	Main provisions in force. Tenancies converted	In force
31 May 2026	Deadline to give existing tenants the information sheet	Passed — penalties apply
31 Jul 2026	Last day to start court proceedings on a pre-existing section 21	Passed — those notices are now dead
Late 2026	PRS database, regional rollout begins	Not in force
2028	Landlord ombudsman, mandatory membership	Not in force
TBC	Awaab’s Law for the private sector	Not in force, consultation pending

Nearly every guide you’ll find on this topic was written in March or April 2026 and still treats 31 May as something coming up. It isn’t. If you are reading this having realised you never sent the information sheet, that is a live compliance problem carrying a civil penalty of up to £7,000 per tenancy — but it is fixable, and the sooner you serve it the better your position. I’ve written that up separately: what to do if you missed the 31 May deadline.

Possession: section 21 is gone

Everything now runs through section 8 grounds

This is the change with the most practical consequence. Under the old regime you could end a tenancy without giving a reason. You now need a ground, evidence for that ground, and the correct notice period. There are 21 mandatory grounds and 11 discretionary ones; in practice most landlords will only ever use a handful.

Ground	What it covers	Notice	Type
1A	You intend to sell	4 months	Mandatory
1	You or a close family member moving in	4 months	Mandatory
8	Serious rent arrears — three months, or 13 weeks	4 weeks	Mandatory
10	Some arrears, below the ground 8 threshold	4 weeks	Discretionary
11	Persistent late payment, even if now clear	4 weeks	Discretionary
12	Breach of a tenancy obligation	2 weeks	Discretionary
13	Deterioration of the property	2 weeks	Discretionary
14	Antisocial behaviour, nuisance, illegal use	None — file immediately	Discretionary
7A	Serious ASB with a conviction or injunction breach	None — file immediately	Mandatory

Two changes here matter more than the rest. Ground 8 moved from two months’ arrears to three — a tenant now has to be considerably further behind before you have a mandatory ground, and arrears attributable to an outstanding Universal Credit housing payment are disregarded entirely. And grounds 1 and 1A carry four months’ notice and cannot be used in the first year of a tenancy.

The ground 1A trap, and what it actually costs

If you take possession because you intend to sell, you cannot then re-let the property. The restricted period starts the day you serve the notice and runs for twelve months from the date your notice expires — so with a four-month notice, that’s about sixteen months from service during which the property cannot be let, cannot be licensed for money, and cannot even be marketed to let.

On my own three-bed in Hastings, letting at £1,500 a month, twelve months of that ban looks like this:

Cost of the 12-month ban	Amount
Rent you can’t collect (12 × £1,500)	£18,000
Council tax on the empty house	~£2,380
Landlord insurance	£150
Utilities standing charges	~£300
Total	~£20,800

The deposit trap nobody is talking about

This is the one I’d check today if I checked nothing else

Under the old rules an unprotected deposit blocked a section 21 notice. Landlords knew that. What changed on 1 May is that deposit protection now bars possession on section 8 grounds too — with only the two antisocial behaviour grounds excepted.

So a tenant can be four months into serious arrears, you can have a textbook ground 8 case, and the court cannot make a possession order if that deposit was never protected or the prescribed information was never served. It is a hard bar, not a factor the judge weighs up.

It is curable — protect it late or return it, and you can proceed — but cure it before you serve, not after. And curing the possession bar does not extinguish the tenant’s separate claim for one to three times the deposit.

Rent increases: section 13 or nothing

Rent review clauses in your tenancy agreement no longer work. The only lawful route is a section 13 notice, and the rules are tighter than they were.

The tribunal point is the one landlords misjudge. Under the old rules a tenant challenging an increase risked the tribunal setting a market rent higher than the landlord had asked for, which deterred challenges. That risk is gone — the tenant’s worst outcome is now paying exactly what you proposed. Expect more challenges, and expect your notice to need to be defensible on market evidence.

Full detail, including how to complete Form 4A and what happens at tribunal: the section 13 rent increase guide.

Pets, benefits and children

Pets. A tenant can request one in writing. You have 28 days to reply in writing, and consent must not be unreasonably refused. If you need more information, or need to ask a superior landlord, the clock extends. A head lease prohibiting pets is the clearest reasonable refusal. Not liking pets is not. And note that the pet insurance provision landlords were told to expect was removed from the Bill during its passage — you cannot require pet insurance, and you cannot take an additional pet deposit. You can still deduct for actual damage at the end. More on pet requests.

Benefits and children. It is now unlawful to refuse a tenant because they receive benefits or because they have children, and terms in superior leases, mortgages or insurance policies purporting to prohibit such lets are of no effect. You can still assess affordability and run normal referencing — the Act preserves that expressly. What you cannot do is filter at the door.

What is not in force yet

Half the internet is describing these as though they applied. They don’t.

Provision	Status	Expected
PRS database not in force	Not commenced. No registration service exists	Regional rollout from late 2026
Landlord ombudsman not in force	Not commenced. Provider not yet designated	2028
Awaab’s Law (private sector) not in force	Not commenced. Timescales to be set by regulations	Subject to consultation
Decent Homes Standard not in force	Not commenced	2035 or later

Worth knowing for when they do arrive: once the database is live, not being registered will bar possession in the same way an unprotected deposit does, with the same two ASB exceptions. That is the compliance deadline to plan for, and it is the reason the database matters more than its dull name suggests.

The full guide

Each of these goes deeper than the summary above

Questions landlords are actually asking