Renters Rights Act 2025

The Renters Rights Act 2025 (RRA) changes almost every established system and process involved in renting a property. Happily the list of the main things that should affect Owners who are supported by a competent agent are as follows:

• New enforcement by Councils plus higher penalties for Owners in breach will mean we need to make sure you are not exposed to these risks.
• Remarketing – as residents can leave a tenancy after two months, we’ve introduced a remarketing discount to manage this risk for you.
• In May 2026 all tenants need formally notifying of the new rules. As this is a legal requirement we will do that for every property we manage – for more details see below.
• Rent Increases must be shown to be based on market levels. We’ve already changed how we review rents and our charges to allow for this.
• Legal Expense and Rent Protection Service costs increased in January to allow for the expected higher costs from RRA plus increasingly congested courts.
• Owners can still evict a tenant if the Owner wants to sell or move in – which was the reason almost all Section 21 notices were served.
• In future there will also be the introduction of a Landlord Ombudsman and Landlord Database.

The RRA changes are designed to improve standards, mainly targeted at “rogue” landlords.  Despite the many alarmist news stories, the fact is the changes, whilst extensive, all are manageable and should not be a problem for Owners who do things properly.

Remarketing costs

The Act allows tenants to end a tenancy at any time with two months’ notice, which they could serve on day one. Previous tenancies were for a 12 month minimum. Clearly if tenants leave early in a tenancy the significant cost of remarketing is an issue for landlords.

We will therefore share this risk by discounting any remarketing charge as follows:

100% discount if new tenants choose to leave in month three or before;
90% discount if new tenants choose to leave in month four;
80% discount if new tenants choose to leave in month five;
Then 10% reduction in the discount each month, meaning if they leave in month 12, there will be a 10% discount in remarketing costs.
If they leave after month 12, normal remarketing costs will apply.

Rent Reviews

The Act significantly increases the time needed to communicate with residents and evidence any rent review. Any increase must be supported by clear evidence of market rates, which we have already implemented on your behalf. A further change is the timing if residents appeal any rent increase to the First Tier Tribunal. In future any decision the Tribunal make is likely to take effect when the Tribunal makes the decision, not back dated to the date it was meant to be effective. This could have the effect of significantly delaying any increase – which feels like a “reward” for mischievous residents!

To address this we increased the detail and evidence in our rent negotiation process to minimise the chance of them appealing to Tribunal, plus increase our chance of success if it happens. Inevitably this extra work brings extra cost, which we implemented earlier this year – We’re offering 3 levels for agreement with you.

• Where a rent increase is likely to be significant our charge will be 2 months of the rent increase plus VAT, with a minimum of £90 inc. VAT (a bigger rent increase = more negotiation work)

• Where a rent increase is likely to be around the level of inflation, we will seek an inflationary increase in rent, for which our charge will be £50 inc. VAT. This will not carry the same market equivalent evidence, so if there is an appeal to the Tribunal, there may be an extra cost to defend this.

• Where we agree the current rent is in line with the current market, there will be no charge for our review.

Eviction when selling or moving in

The old Section 21 “no fault” notice will not apply from 1 May. The overwhelming cause of most Section 21 notices was the Owner selling the property or wanting it back to move into. RRA has clear grounds for removing tenants in these situations (Grounds 1 – moving in and 1A – selling). The notice needed has doubled to four months, but that is much less time than most property sales take.

To prevent rogues using this as a ruse to get tenants out, the RRA prevents the property being rented for 12 months after the previous tenancy ended for these reasons.

Please be aware removing difficult residents will require a Section 8 Notice with evidence of a clear breach of tenancy. This will almost certainly require court action, which is why we strongly advise taking our Legal Expenses and Rent Protection service, or having equivalent cover.

Private Rental Sector (PRS) Ombudsman

This has yet to be introduced, with timing and costs unknown.

The PRS Ombudsman will be an independent redress scheme who review the conduct of private Landlords where tenants raise any concerns. All landlords will need to register, regardless of whether they have an agent or not. For some years Agents have been obliged to be members of a such a scheme, we are members of the Property Ombudsman. The Government say there will be “a small annual fee per PRS property”