The tenant information sheet: what landlords and agents must serve

This article provides general information, not legal advice. As of June 2026.

If you own or manage a private rented property in England, a new statutory duty arrived on 1 May 2026 — and it came with a hard deadline and a civil penalty that can reach £7,000 for a first breach.

The requirement is straightforward in principle: serve a government-prescribed information sheet on every qualifying tenant. In practice, the issue that trips people up is not whether you served it. It is proving that you did.

What the information sheet actually is

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 abolished assured shorthold tenancies and replaced them with a single, periodic assured tenancy regime. For existing tenants, that change took effect on 1 May 2026. Parliament recognised that renters would find themselves with a tenancy that worked differently from the one they signed, so it created a duty — set out in Schedule 6 (paragraph 7) to the Act — for landlords and agents to explain what had changed.

The information sheet is the government’s answer to that duty. It is a four-page PDF, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and available to download from GOV.UK. It covers the abolition of fixed terms and Section 21, the new grounds for possession, the right to request a pet, and the rent increase rules (Section 13 process, one increase per year, Form 4A).

Critically, it is not optional, and it is not something you can paraphrase or summarise yourself. The duty is to serve that specific document.

Which tenancies are in scope

In broad terms, the duty applies where, on 1 May 2026, the tenant held an assured or assured shorthold tenancy in the private rented sector in England that was entered into before that date, and there was a written record of the tenancy’s terms.

The position on tenancies with no written record is different rather than simply “excluded”: under Schedule 6, where there is no written agreement the landlord must instead provide certain prescribed written information, generally within one month of the commencement date. If that applies to you, take advice on exactly what must be supplied.

The wider tenancy reforms — and with them the information sheet obligation — do not apply to high-rent tenancies (annual rent above £100,000), tenancies regulated by the Rent Act 1977, lodger arrangements, or company lets. Social housing tenants are also outside the regime.

One transitional edge case: where a valid Section 8 or Section 21 notice was served before 1 May 2026, and that notice later becomes invalid or court proceedings conclude without possession being granted, the tenancy becomes periodic and the landlord then has one month to serve the sheet. If you are navigating that window, take advice before assuming a deadline has passed.

The 31 May 2026 deadline — and what happens if you missed it

Landlords and letting agents had to serve the information sheet by 31 May 2026. The sheet was published on 20 March 2026, so there was more than a ten-week window in which to serve it.

If that deadline has passed and you have not served it, the exposure is real. A local housing authority can impose a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for a first breach; the government’s enforcement guidance sets a starting point of £4,000, which a council may adjust up or down within that cap. Where a penalty has been imposed and the breach continues for more than 28 days after the penalty is imposed (or an appeal concludes), the person commits an offence and is liable to either criminal prosecution or a further civil penalty of up to £40,000. Repeat breaches (assessed within a five-year window) sit at the higher end, and a history of non-compliance justifies a higher penalty.

The enforcement body is the local housing authority for the area where the property sits. Enforcement appetite will vary between councils, but the powers are clear and councils have been issued updated civil penalty guidance.

How to serve it validly — and why a link is not enough

This is where many well-meaning landlords go wrong.

The government guidance is explicit: emailing or texting a link to the PDF is not valid service. The document must be transmitted as the actual PDF, not a pointer to where it lives online. The valid methods set out by GOV.UK are:

• Sending the PDF electronically as an attachment to an email or text message
• A printed hard copy, posted or given to the tenant by hand

Every tenant named on the tenancy agreement must be given their own copy. Serving one tenant and relying on them to pass it along does not satisfy the duty.

The same logic applies to agents. If a letting agent manages the property, the agent must serve the information sheet — even if the landlord has also done so. Both obligations run in parallel. This matters for agents using property management software: check that your system attaches the PDF itself rather than generating a download link.

Proof of service: the real risk

Meeting the deadline is only half the problem. If a tenant later disputes that they received the sheet — or if a local authority asks for evidence — you need to be able to demonstrate service. “I sent it” is not, on its own, evidence.

What good proof looks like:

Method	Sensible evidence to keep
Email	Saved sent email showing the PDF attached, the recipient address, and the timestamp
First-class post	Certificate of posting or tracked despatch receipt
Hand delivery	Dated delivery note signed by the tenant, or a contemporaneous written record
Document platform	Audit trail showing the actual file (not a link) was transmitted

A download link in a tenant portal leaves you with little. The tenant can truthfully say they never received a file — they received a URL. That gap is the audit-trail risk that catches out landlords and agents who acted in good faith but served it incorrectly.

This is the problem that PropertyGoose’s document delivery is designed to close: attaching the correct file to a timestamped, traceable communication and keeping the audit record against the tenancy, not buried in someone’s email sent folder. A download link in a chase-up email might feel like compliance. It is not.

New tenancies from 1 May 2026 onwards

For tenancies created on or after 1 May 2026, the information sheet sits alongside a broader written statement of terms requirement under The Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Statement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/324), made under section 16D of the Housing Act 1988. Landlords must provide a written statement containing the prescribed items — 18 in total — covering matters such as the parties, rent and payment arrangements, notice requirements, and confirmation that the landlord can only end the tenancy by a court possession order.

The information sheet should accompany that written statement. If you are using a compliant tenancy agreement process, the sheet should be a standard part of your pre-tenancy document pack.

What agents need to do now

If you manage properties on behalf of landlords, your exposure is direct — you cannot delegate compliance back to the client. Review your document workflow and ask:

• Does your system attach the PDF, or generate a link?
• Are you retaining sent-email records, or do they disappear when a tenancy is archived?
• For properties where you took over management after 1 May, has the predecessor served the sheet?

A robust property management process documents every step — not just for the information sheet, but for the full suite of pre-tenancy documents landlords and agents are required to serve. The Renters’ Rights Act has raised the stakes on getting this right, and local authorities now have stronger tools to act on complaints.

A quick reference checklist

• The official PDF must be served — not a link, not a paraphrase
• Every named tenant must receive their own copy
• The deadline for existing tenancies was 31 May 2026; the breach is ongoing until cured
• Penalty starting point £4,000, up to £7,000 for a first breach; up to £40,000 (or prosecution) for a continuing or repeat breach
• Both landlord and managing agent must serve it where a managing agent is involved
• Retain verifiable proof of delivery against each tenancy record

If you want to understand how PropertyGoose handles document delivery and audit trails, we are happy to walk you through it.

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Craig Ryder. General information only — not legal advice. Verify your specific circumstances with a qualified solicitor. Laws cited are as of June 2026.