Letting well19 September 2026 15 min read

England's new tenancy rules, and the statement you hand over first

On 1 May 2026, letting a home in England changed shape: no end dates, no section 21, and a written statement the landlord must give before the tenancy starts.

Some rules arrive with a headline. This one arrived as a date in May, and plenty of people letting a home in England are still working from the version of the law that ended that day.

I have had my head inside this one for days, because I sell a tenancy agreement and I could not keep selling it honestly without knowing exactly what changed. So I read the Act, the regulations made under it and the government's own guidance, rather than a summary of a summary. Everything is linked at the bottom. I would rather you checked me than trusted me.

This is not legal advice. I sell templates; I am not a solicitor. What follows is what the law says and where to read it — not what you should do about it.

First: is this even your rule?

The Housing Act 1988 sets two conditions before a letting is an assured tenancy at all: the tenant is an individual, and at least one tenant occupies the place as their only or principal home. Schedule 1 then lists lettings that cannot be assured whatever else is true, and two of those matter to the people who read this journal.

Holiday lettings are out — "a tenancy the purpose of which is to confer on the tenant the right to occupy the dwelling-house for a holiday". The test is the purpose of the letting, not how long the booking runs or which site it came through. Resident landlords are out too: broadly, where the let part is in a building the landlord also lives in as their only or principal home, and the building is not a purpose-built block of flats. A lodger in your own home sits there, which is why the England tenancy agreement I sell says on its face that it is not for one.

So if you let for holidays, this is not your rule. In Greater London the number being counted is the ninety-night one; elsewhere in England that section does not apply and the position is ordinary planning law and whatever your council has decided. That kind of letting is papered with a short-stay agreement rather than a tenancy agreement.

This post is about the other kind of letting: a home in England let to an individual who lives in it as their only or principal home. That is an assured tenancy, and on 1 May 2026 it changed shape.

There is no end date any more

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 put a new section into the Housing Act 1988. A landlord must not "purport to let a dwelling-house on the tenancy for a fixed term". Not "should not". Must not.

So the twelve-month tenancy with a six-month break clause is gone as a thing you can create. Tenancies run periodically — monthly, if rent is monthly — with no end date, and gov.uk's own guidance for landlords puts it in one blunt line: you cannot have an end date on your tenancy agreement.

Existing tenancies were not left behind. Assured shorthold tenancies that were already running became assured periodic tenancies on the same day, and they take a different route to the paperwork. Where an existing tenancy is wholly or partly in writing, the new written-statement section does not apply to it at all; instead Schedule 6 of the Act requires the landlord to give the tenant prescribed written information about the changes within one month of the commencement date — which is where gov.uk's "by the 31 May 2026" comes from, and the Information Sheet is the document it points at. Where an existing tenancy was wholly oral, the written statement itself is what is due inside that month.

That deadline has passed. The duty has not: Schedule 6 reads a failure to give the information into the same financial penalty as the written statement, and the Act allows a further penalty where a contravention carries on more than 28 days after the last one.

One more line worth knowing, because it catches people who think a tenancy can be ended the way a lodger arrangement can: a landlord's notice to quit "is of no effect in relation to an assured tenancy".

Section 21 is not there any more

I looked the section up as it stands today: the text is gone. The whole chapter of the 1988 Act that held assured shorthold tenancies has been repealed.

Possession now runs one way — a section 8 notice, stating a ground in Schedule 2 of the Act. Gov.uk's landlord overview says the notice period is four months in many cases and shorter for some grounds; that selling the property or moving into it cannot be used as a reason in the first twelve months of a tenancy; and that where the reason is arrears, the court only has to make a possession order if the tenant owes three months' rent.

There is a deposit condition sitting in front of all of that, and it has quietly moved. Section 215 of the Housing Act 2004 now says that where a deposit has been paid on an assured tenancy, the court may make a possession order only if the deposit is being held in an authorised scheme, only if the scheme's requirements have been met, and only if the prescribed information has been given — with exceptions, including where the deposit has been returned and where possession is sought on the two antisocial-behaviour grounds. It used to bite on section 21 notices. Now it bites on possession itself.

Where a landlord has committed, or been convicted of, certain offences, a tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a rent repayment order. Gov.uk says the list of offences has been expanded and the maximum has gone up from one year's rent to two.

The part people miss: the statement you hand over first

This is the change I think will catch the most honest landlords out, because it is paperwork rather than principle. It is the duty for a tenancy entered into now — existing written tenancies took the Schedule 6 route above.

The Act requires the landlord to give the tenant a written statement of the tenancy's terms and certain information, and the timing is the sharp bit: "the statement under subsection (2) must be given before the tenancy is entered into." Before. Not on the day, not with the keys.

What must be in it is not left to taste. A set of regulations made in March 2026 lists it, and the list runs to eighteen paragraphs. In plain English, it covers:

the name of the landlord and the name of the tenant — every one of them, where there is more than one
an address in England and Wales where notices can be served on the landlord
the address of the property, and the date the tenant is first entitled to possession
the rent, when it is due, and an explanation that raising it needs a section 13 notice
any bills the tenant pays to the landlord, whether they are part of the rent or on top, how much and when
the deposit amount, where deposit protection applies
the minimum notice the tenant has to give
an explanation that, in most circumstances, the landlord can only end the tenancy through a court possession order, and that the ground used sets the notice period
the landlord's duty to keep the home fit for human habitation
the landlord's repairing duties — structure and exterior, and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, heating and hot water
electrical safety: inspection and testing at least every five years, and the report going to the tenant
gas safety, where there is a relevant gas fitting: keeping it in a safe condition, checks by a person approved by the Health and Safety Executive at the intervals the gas regulations set, and the record given to the tenant
disabled adaptations: that consent to an improvement that helps a disabled occupier must not be unreasonably withheld
pets: that the tenant can ask, and consent must not be unreasonably refused
and, where it applies, that the tenancy is supported accommodation, with an explanation of why

There is also a smaller trap in the same section. Some grounds for possession can only be used later if the landlord said at the start that they wanted to be able to use them. The Act lists those grounds by number, and between them they cover lettings to students, supported accommodation, homes tied to a job or to a minister of religion, a superior lease coming to an end, and several that only fit particular kinds of landlord or letting. Moving in and selling up are not on that list — those grounds carry the twelve-month restriction instead. Leave the wish out of the opening statement and, by the Act's own words, the landlord must not rely on the listed grounds afterwards.

And there is a penalty attached, which is the part I had to read twice. A local housing authority may impose a financial penalty where this duty is contravened, and the Act caps it at £7,000 — the cap on one penalty, not on the exposure. A further penalty can follow where the contravention carries on more than 28 days after the last one; carrying on after a penalty is an offence in its own right; and where an authority imposes a penalty instead of prosecuting for that offence, the cap on that one is £40,000.

Rent: once a year, two months' notice, and no bidding

Rent rises go through the section 13 process: a notice in the prescribed form — gov.uk names it Form 4A — taking effect no earlier than two months after it is served, no earlier than fifty-two weeks after the first period of the tenancy began, and, where the rent has been raised before, no earlier than fifty-two weeks after that increase took effect (fifty-three, in one edge case the section spells out). Gov.uk states the practical version: you cannot increase rent more than once a year, and a tenant can challenge a proposed increase that is above the open market rent.

Two things about challenges are worth knowing as of this month. The government said on 9 September 2026 that HMRC's Valuation Office will in future decide these challenges in England, and that while that is being built, challenges still go to the First-tier Tribunal — where a tenant who challenges does not have to pay the higher rent until the Tribunal has made its final decision.

Separately, advertising changed. A written advert or offer of a letting has to state a specific rent, and the prospective landlord — or anyone acting for them, directly or indirectly — may not invite, encourage or accept an offer above that stated rent. A tenant who offers more is not the one breaking the rule. A to-let sign at the property that merely says the place is available is the exception. Rental bidding, as a way of running a viewing, is over.

Pets, and the twenty-eight days

Every assured tenancy this applies to now carries an implied term: the tenant may keep a pet if they ask in the way the section sets out and the landlord consents, and that consent "is not to be unreasonably refused". The landlord has to give or refuse consent in writing on or before the twenty-eighth day after the request, with a short extension if they reasonably ask the tenant for more information about the pet, or have to ask a superior landlord.

The tenant's notice is two months

The Act rewrote the tenant's side of notice too. A tenant's notice to quit under an assured tenancy has to be given at least two months before it takes effect — unless the landlord has agreed in writing to a shorter length, and that agreed length cannot be longer than two months either. Where the tenancy is joint, an agreement to a shorter notice is not valid unless it is made between the landlord and all of the tenants.

Two things a landlord can no longer filter on

The Act makes it unlawful in England to stop someone enquiring about, viewing or renting a home because a child would live there, and the same for a person's benefits status. Gov.uk's landlord overview adds one more in the same breath: rent cannot be asked for, encouraged or accepted before the tenancy agreement is signed.

What is coming, and when

The landlord registration service is next, and this one has dates. The government's announcement of 9 September 2026 says the service launches on 15 December 2026, starting in the West Midlands and reaching other areas over twelve months. When an area is called forward, landlords with property in that region get a three-month window to sign up, and it says all landlords actively letting property will need to have registered by 14 November 2027. The same page calls registering a legal requirement that risks a fine if it is not done, says letting agents and landlords will have to put registration numbers on adverts, and says the requirement applies at first to properties that are let, or that become occupied during the rollout.

That is not the short-term lets register hosts have been waiting for — a separate scheme, and when I wrote about it on 31 August gov.uk still gave no start date for it. The wider private rented sector database that sits behind the landlord service is in the Act but has not been switched on: the commencement regulations I read brought the tenancy reforms in on 1 May 2026 and a set of hazard-enforcement changes on 22 June 2026, and the database chapter was not among them.

The ombudsman, the Decent Homes Standard for private renting and Awaab's Law for private renting are all in the Act too. I looked for firm dates for each and did not find any I would stand behind on a government source, so they are not in this post. When there is a date, there will be one.

The How to Rent guide has gone

Small, and it will outlive this post in old tenancy packs: the How to Rent checklist was withdrawn on 1 May 2026. Gov.uk's own page for it now says the guide is not up to date and points readers at the assured periodic tenancy guidance instead. If a landlord's onboarding still includes "hand over the How to Rent guide", that line is out of date.

What I changed on my own side

I will be straight about this, because you have watched me sell these documents.

My UK tenancy agreement was written for the old world and had claims on it that the new one does not support. I rebuilt it in September as an England-only assured periodic tenancy agreement, checked line by line against the eighteen paragraphs above, and the old wording and the pictures that called it compliant are gone.

What a template like mine does is give you a written statement to fill in, in the shape the regulations ask for. What it does not do is make anything legally watertight, and it is not a substitute for a solicitor reading your final document — which is what I would want anyone to do before relying on any template, mine included.

If it is useful, the England Tenancy Agreement is here, and if you are not sure which document fits your situation, I wrote a guide comparing them.

Correct as at 19 September 2026. This is an area that is still moving — check the sources below for the current position before you rely on any of it.