The Renters' Rights Act is the biggest rewrite of English tenancy law since 1988, and it stopped being a future event on 1 May 2026, when its core commenced. Two months later, most of the noise online is still about the Bill as drafted rather than the Act as commenced, which is how agencies end up following rules that were amended out and missing the ones that carry £40,000 penalties.
This guide states the position as of 11 July 2026, verified against the Act, its commencement regulations and gov.uk guidance. It covers England (the tenancy regime is England-only). It is general information, not legal advice.
What is in force now, and what is not
In force since 1 May 2026 (Commencement No. 2 Regulations, SI 2026/421): the new periodic tenancy regime and section 21 abolition, the reformed possession grounds, section 13-only rent increases, the pet request framework, the rental bidding ban, the rent-in-advance limit, the discrimination protections, the doubled civil penalties and rent repayment orders, and the £40,000 illegal-eviction civil penalty. Council investigatory powers commenced earlier, on 27 December 2025.
Not yet in force: the PRS landlord database (regional rollout from late 2026; no registration is possible today), the landlord ombudsman (expected 2028; agents stay in their existing redress schemes), the Decent Homes Standard for the sector (2035 at the latest) and Awaab's law for private rentals (no date; consultation to come). Anyone telling you to register on the database today is selling something.
Tenancies: periodic, open-ended, tenant-terminable
Every private assured tenancy, new or existing, is now an open-ended periodic tenancy. Fixed terms are abolished; an end date written into an agreement is simply void, and rent periods cannot exceed a month. Existing ASTs converted automatically on 1 May 2026 with no re-issuing required, but agents had a real paperwork duty: the official Renters' Rights Act information sheet had to reach every tenant by 31 May 2026, with fines up to £7,000 for failure, and wholly oral tenancies needed a written statement of terms by the same date. New tenancies need written terms before they begin.
Tenants can leave on two months' written notice from day one, ending on or before a rent day; there is no minimum term, and one joint tenant's notice ends a joint tenancy. Model your voids accordingly: the first-year guarantee your landlords were used to is gone, and the honest answer to "can they just leave?" is yes.
Possession: section 8 or nothing
Landlord-side, the notice-to-quit era is over. Possession means a section 8 notice citing a reformed Schedule 2 ground, and the grounds that matter daily now look like this:
- Moving in (Ground 1) and selling (Ground 1A): mandatory, four months' notice, and the notice cannot expire inside the tenancy's first twelve months. Ground 1A carries the clause agencies must wire into their marketing systems: after relying on it, the property cannot be re-marketed or re-let for twelve months from notice expiry, and an agent who re-markets it is exposed alongside the landlord. It is also unavailable against pre-May-2026 tenancies that were full assured tenancies.
- Arrears (Ground 8): the mandatory threshold rose to three months' rent, held at both notice and hearing, on four weeks' notice. A tenant who pays down below the line before the hearing defeats the mandatory ground, which makes disciplined, early arrears work more valuable, not less.
- Antisocial behaviour (Ground 14): discretionary, no minimum notice, though no order lands within fourteen days.
- Student HMOs (Ground 4A): four months' notice expiring between 1 June and 30 September, with a prior-notice condition, and unusable where the tenancy was agreed more than six months before it began, which quietly ended the January-signing culture for the following September.
Two more teeth to respect. Deposit compliance now gates possession: except on the antisocial grounds, a court cannot make a section 8 order unless the deposit is protected and the prescribed information served. And the transition has already closed behind you: pre-commencement section 21 notices died on 31 July 2026 unless proceedings were issued.
Rent increases: Form 4A, once a year, tribunal-checked
Rent review clauses are void. The only lawful increase is a section 13 notice on Form 4A, with at least two months' notice, at most once per twelve months, and not within the first year; increases that took effect before commencement count against the twelve-month clock. The tenant can refer the notice to the First-tier Tribunal before the start date; the tribunal sets an open-market rent but cannot exceed the landlord's proposed figure, and can defer the start by up to two months for hardship. There is no cap tied to inflation, whatever the headlines said: the discipline is market evidence, so keep comparable evidence on file per property before proposing a figure.
Pets, bidding and discrimination
Three areas where the Bill-era coverage most misleads:
Pets. Tenants have a statutory right to request a pet in writing; the landlord must respond in writing within 28 days (extendable slightly if more information is requested) and cannot unreasonably refuse; reasonable refusals include another tenant's allergy or a superior lease prohibition. The much-discussed pet insurance condition did not survive: it was removed from the Bill in July 2025 and is not in the Act, and neither is any extra pet deposit. Deposit caps under the Tenant Fees Act are unchanged.
Bidding. Every advert must state a single fixed asking rent, and inviting, encouraging or accepting offers above it is banned, with penalties starting at £7,000 and escalating for repeats. Rent in advance is capped at one month, taken only after signing.
Discrimination. Blanket bans on children or benefit recipients are unlawful; affordability checks remain fine. Scrub the listings templates and the pre-qualification scripts both.
The penalty landscape
The Act runs on civil penalties councils can issue without prosecuting: up to £7,000 for first or less serious breaches (the information sheet, bidding, advertising failures, discrimination) and up to £40,000 for serious or repeat offences, including illegal eviction. Rent repayment orders doubled to 24 months' rent for offences from 1 May 2026, now reach superior landlords, and are mandatory at the maximum for repeat offenders. Councils gained document, entry and third-party data powers in December 2025 and must report their enforcement activity, which is a legislature saying, in procedural language, that it expects these powers used.
The agent's checklist
- Marketing: one fixed rent per advert, no ranges, no bidding, no fixed terms advertised, no family or benefits exclusions; a re-marketing block wired in for any property taken through Ground 1A.
- Setup: periodic-only agreements with monthly rent periods, written terms before day one, deposit protected and prescribed information served immediately, because possession now depends on it. Student HMOs: Ground 4A prior notice, and no signing more than six months ahead.
- Existing book: information sheets served (the 31 May 2026 deadline has passed; if any tenant was missed, fix it now and document the date), oral tenancies papered.
- Rent reviews: a per-tenancy twelve-month diary, Form 4A only, two months' notice, comparables on file.
- Arrears: escalate early and keep the ledger clean; the three-month threshold makes both the evidence and the timeline stricter.
- Pets: a 28-day response workflow with written decisions and documented reasons; no insurance demands.
- Horizon: database registration workflows ready for late 2026 (once live, marketing an unregistered property becomes unlawful), ombudsman in 2028.
Where LintelCRM fits
Most of this checklist is calendar-and-evidence work, which is what the software is for: per-tenancy records with rent periods and review dates, an arrears ladder whose ledger history stands up at a hearing, compliance tracking for the certificates that sit behind possession claims, and portals that document the communication trail: the tenant portal timestamps repair reports and notices, and the landlord portal keeps landlords looking at the same facts you are. The Act rewards agencies that can prove what happened and when; that is precisely the artefact a single record produces.
Sources
Renters' Rights Act 2025 (c. 26); SI 2025/1354 and SI 2026/421 (commencement and transitional provisions); the government implementation roadmap (13 November 2025); gov.uk landlord and agent guidance as updated from 1 May 2026 (grounds for possession, rent increases, pets, rental bidding, tenant notice); the Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet publication; NRLA and Propertymark analyses for transitional detail. All checked 11 July 2026. Not legal advice; possession and penalty questions belong with a solicitor.