The Renters' Rights Act: a letting agent's operational readiness checklist

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026. That date has passed, which means the checklist below isn’t a planning exercise — it’s a gap analysis. If items on it are still open, your agency is currently exposed.

The two articles that typically come up when agents Google this topic cover the broad strokes well enough. What they don’t do is walk you through the full operational lifecycle: what changed, what’s still changing, what the penalties are for getting it wrong, and — critically — why your referencing and tenancy documentation processes are now your primary compliance audit trail.

This post covers all of that. It is general information, not legal advice — verify anything with regulatory or legal significance against legislation.gov.uk or a qualified solicitor.

What happened on 1 May 2026

On 1 May 2026, the new periodic tenancy regime took effect for all private rented sector tenancies in England. That means:

• Fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) are abolished. All existing ASTs converted automatically to periodic assured tenancies; every new tenancy granted from 1 May must be periodic from the start.
• Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions are abolished. The last date to serve a Section 21 notice was 30 April 2026; notices not backed by a possession claim by 31 July 2026 are unenforceable.
• Section 8 is now the only statutory route to possession. Grounds and notice periods have changed significantly (see below).
• Rent increases are capped at one per year via a formal Section 13 (Form 4A) process, with two months’ notice required (up from one month).
• Rental bidding is banned. Agents must advertise a fixed asking rent and cannot accept or invite offers above it.
• Advance rent is capped at one month for all new tenancies. The deposit cap of five weeks’ rent (for annual rent under £50,000) is unchanged.
• Discrimination against families and benefit recipients when marketing or letting is prohibited, with a civil penalty for which the government’s guidance sets a £6,000 starting point (rising to a maximum of £7,000).

For existing tenancies, landlords — and agents acting on their behalf — had until 31 May 2026 to serve the prescribed government Information Sheet on tenants. If you managed properties with written tenancies as of 1 May and have not yet done this, the civil penalty is up to £7,000. Do not delay further.

The new Section 8 landscape

Every agency needs to have briefed landlords — and retrained any property management staff — on the revised grounds and notice periods. Here are the ones you’ll encounter most often (as of June 2026):

Ground	Basis	Notice required
Ground 8	Mandatory: ≥3 months’ (or 13 weeks’) arrears at notice and at hearing	4 weeks
Ground 1	Mandatory: landlord/family intends to occupy	4 months
Ground 1A	Mandatory: landlord intends to sell	4 months
Ground 6	Mandatory: demolition or substantial redevelopment	4 months
Ground 14	Discretionary: anti-social behaviour	Immediate
Ground 7A	Mandatory: serious anti-social/criminal behaviour	Immediate

Critical restriction: Grounds 1 and 1A are unavailable during the first 12 months of a tenancy. Any agent who advises a landlord to serve notice on those grounds within that window — or who markets the property for re-letting within 12 months of using them — faces a civil penalty of up to £40,000 under Section 16J(2) of the Housing Act 1988 (as amended). The government’s guidance sets a £25,000 starting point for this offence.

The arrears threshold for Ground 8 is now three months (or 13 weeks for weekly/fortnightly rent), both at the point the notice is served and at the hearing. A tenant who pays off some arrears between notice and hearing can defeat the ground. This makes proactive arrears management — and solid documentation of every payment — far more important than it was under fixed terms.

The compliance exposure agents often miss

The Renters’ Rights Act extends liability explicitly to letting agents. Civil penalties attach to anyone acting or purporting to act on a landlord’s behalf. That is you. Penalties run from a £7,000 maximum for a breach up to £40,000 for an offence (and for continuing or repeat breaches). Rent repayment orders — recoverable by tenants or local authorities at the First-tier Tribunal — can reach up to two years’ rent and can run alongside civil penalties rather than instead of them.

Local authorities have had new investigatory powers since 27 December 2025, including the right to inspect properties, demand documents, and access third-party data. They do not always need a warrant.

The paper trail matters. If a council inspector asks to see evidence that you served the Information Sheet, that you gave proper Section 13 notice, that you documented an arrears history, or that you conducted Right to Rent checks — you need to be able to produce that evidence quickly. Agencies running on email threads and shared spreadsheets will struggle.

Your operational readiness checklist

Work through this in order. Items marked have passed their primary deadline — action is still required.

Phase 1 (1 May 2026) — already in force

• Served prescribed Information Sheet on all tenants with existing written tenancies (deadline: 31 May 2026)
• Created written term statements for any tenancies agreed verbally (deadline: 31 May 2026)
• Removed fixed-term options from all new tenancy agreement templates
• Updated all tenancy agreements to comply with periodic tenancy statutory requirements
• Briefed landlords on Ground 1 / Ground 1A 12-month restriction
• Updated rent-setting process: fixed advertised rent, no-bidding policy documented
• Updated rent collection to cap advance payments at one month for new lets
• Updated Section 13 notice process: Form 4A, two months’ notice minimum, one increase per year
• Retrained property management staff on new Section 8 grounds and notice periods
• Removed any references to Section 21 from template letters, CRM automation and standard correspondence
• Audited marketing process: no invitation or acceptance of offers above advertised rent

Phase 2 (late 2026 onwards — dates to be confirmed)

• Monitor MHCLG announcements on PRS Database regional rollout (rollout begins from late 2026)
• Prepare landlord client list for mandatory database registration — properties cannot be marketed without active entries once the database goes live
• Budget for PRS Database annual fee (amount to be confirmed closer to launch)

Phase 3 (from 2028 — dates to be confirmed)

• PRS Landlord Ombudsman: mandatory landlord membership expected in 2028 per the government’s implementation roadmap
• Awaab’s Law extension to private rented sector: subject to consultation, no confirmed date
• Decent Homes Standard: subject to consultation; the government has proposed bringing it into force in either 2035 or 2037

Where referencing becomes your audit trail

There is a structural shift buried in the periodic tenancy model that agents often underestimate.

Under fixed terms, the renewal was a natural reset point: you re-referenced, updated documentation, and re-papered the tenancy. That checkpoint disappears. Periodic tenancies roll on indefinitely, which means:

1. Your initial reference is the reference. There is no routine renewal at which you update affordability, income, or conduct checks.
2. Possession on arrears grounds requires precise evidence. Ground 8 demands documented arrears at two points in time. If your records are inconsistent, the ground fails.
3. Right to Rent checks must remain valid for the life of the tenancy. Time-limited permission holders need follow-up checks — on rolling tenancies with no natural end date, these can easily be missed.

A full referencing process — identity, credit, affordability, employment and previous landlord — run at move-in gives you a clean starting record. Combined with disciplined mid-tenancy documentation, it is the foundation of any enforcement action you might need to take under Section 8.

For volume agents, pricing that scales with your throughput matters too. If the compliance overhead per tenancy is rising, the economics of cutting corners on referencing quality get worse, not better — a failed Ground 8 claim because the arrears record is incomplete costs far more than any reference fee.

The renewal fee problem — and the case for managed services

The numbers here are blunt. According to Goodlord’s research, renewals account for an average of 27% of letting agency revenue — rising to 37% in London. With periodic tenancies, that revenue line disappears.

Agencies are responding in one of two ways: repricing at the front end (some agency heads have suggested initial fees may need to approximately double to compensate), or pivoting aggressively to fully managed services with ongoing monthly fees. The managed model fits the new landscape better — it creates continuous revenue that matches the continuous, open-ended nature of the tenancy.

That pivot only works if your compliance overhead is under control. If you are manually tracking Section 13 notices, arrears, Right to Rent follow-ups and PRS Database registration across a portfolio, the workload per tenancy rises fast. Agents we speak to are actively looking for platforms that handle the full tenancy lifecycle rather than point solutions for individual tasks.

What’s coming next

Late 2026: PRS Database rollout begins. Landlords will need to register; properties not on the database cannot be marketed. Agents managing landlord relationships will need to coordinate this.

2028 (expected): PRS Landlord Ombudsman membership becomes mandatory. Both the database and the ombudsman will carry civil penalties for non-compliance.

TBC: Awaab’s Law extension (damp and mould hazard response timelines) and the Decent Homes Standard for the private rented sector. Both remain subject to consultation; the government has proposed the Decent Homes Standard for either 2035 or 2037 but has not yet confirmed dates.

The Act has delivered the most significant structural change to the English private rented sector in decades. The operational readiness gap between well-prepared agencies and those still running on manual processes is widening. The penalty regime makes catching up urgent.

If you want to understand how PropertyGoose handles referencing, tenancy agreements and ongoing tenancy management for agents — without requiring an upfront platform commitment — book a demo and we’ll walk you through it.