How to increase rent under the new Section 13 process

General information only — not legal advice. This covers assured periodic tenancies in England under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. Verify your position with a solicitor or regulated letting agent before serving any notice.

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Most landlords know they can raise the rent. Far fewer know that, since 1 May 2026, there is now only one legal route to do it on an assured periodic tenancy in England — and getting a single date wrong on the form can cost you a full year’s worth of an increase you were entitled to.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has removed the alternatives to the statutory Section 13 process. Contractual rent-review clauses no longer take effect; informal “agreed” uplifts are not enforceable; a text message saying “we both agreed £950” carries no weight. If you have not used Form 4A and followed the prescribed procedure, the previous rent stands, and the tenant is under no obligation to pay more — whatever the open market is doing.

This is not designed to trap landlords. The process itself is straightforward. What follows is a compliant, step-by-step workflow you can build reminders around so the timing never catches you out.

The three rules before you even open the form

Once a year, no sooner. You can only increase the rent once in any 12-month period, and the new rent cannot take effect until at least 12 months after the previous increase took effect. Plan accordingly: if last year’s increase took effect on 1 September 2025, the earliest your next increase can take effect is 1 September 2026 — and you must serve notice at least two months before that date.

Not in the first year. You cannot use Section 13 to increase the rent during the first 12 months of the tenancy. Set a diary reminder for month ten so you are ready to serve the moment the window opens.

Market rent is the ceiling. The proposed figure should reflect what the property would achieve if re-let on the open market. That is the standard the tribunal applies if a tenant challenges. Here is the change that matters most: under the new rules the tribunal can only confirm or reduce the rent you proposed — it cannot set it higher. The historic risk of a tenant’s challenge backfiring into a higher tribunal-set rent has gone, which means tenants have less to lose by challenging. Set your figure at genuine market rent and back it with evidence.

Completing Form 4A correctly

Form 4A — Landlord’s notice proposing a new rent under an assured periodic tenancy — is the prescribed form for England from 1 May 2026, replacing the old Form 4. Download it free from GOV.UK.

Every mandatory field must be completed. Common mistakes that can invalidate the notice:

• Wrong effective date. Guidance indicates the new rent should take effect on the first day of a rent period — the date rent is contractually due, not when the tenant happens to transfer funds. If rent is due on the 20th, set the effective date to a 20th.
• Insufficient notice. You must give the completed form to the tenant at least two months before the rent increase is due to start. Build in a buffer rather than cutting it fine.
• Missing tenant names. Every tenant named in the tenancy agreement should appear on the notice.
• No proposed rent figure. The form must state both the current rent and the specific proposed new rent.

An incomplete or incorrect Form 4A is not legally enforceable — the tenant stays on the old rent, and you may have to wait until the next window before a fresh, valid notice can take effect.

For letting agents, this is a sensible item to embed in your tenancy-management workflow. Across a portfolio, a single missed renewal window compounds into real lost income. PropertyGoose’s referencing and tenancy tools are built around exactly this kind of lifecycle event tracking.

Serving the notice

Once the form is complete, serve it on each tenant. In practice landlords use:

• Email — attach as PDF, sent to the tenant’s confirmed address; retain your sent folder as proof
• Post — first class with a free certificate of posting from Royal Mail, or tracked delivery; retain the receipt
• Hand delivery — in person, ideally with a signed acknowledgement

Check your tenancy agreement for any specified method of service and follow it. Keep a paper trail regardless: if the notice is later challenged, you may need to prove when it was served.

If the property has a guarantor, it is good practice to keep them informed of the increase, even though Section 13 does not require it.

What happens when a tenant challenges your notice

A tenant who believes the proposed rent exceeds the open market rate can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for an open market rent determination, using Form MR1. The application fee is £47, with no separate hearing fee for this application type. The tenant must apply before the start date of the new rent given in your notice — once that date passes without a challenge, the new rent takes effect.

Two points are critical under the post-Renters’-Rights-Act regime:

1. The tribunal can only confirm or reduce your proposed rent — never increase it. Previously a challenge could result in a higher tribunal-set rent; that risk no longer exists.
2. A tribunal-determined rent is no longer backdated to your notice date. Per GOV.UK guidance, if the tribunal decides before your proposed start date, the new rent applies from that proposed start date. If the decision comes after it (because proceedings take time), the new rent usually applies only from the next rent payment date after the tribunal’s decision — and the tribunal can defer it further where immediate payment would cause the tenant undue hardship. A drawn-out challenge can therefore delay when your increase actually starts.

In practice this means:

• Set your figure at genuine market rent, not above it.
• Before serving, gather comparable evidence — Rightmove or Zoopla listings for similar properties nearby, a letting agent’s market appraisal, or evidence of what the property achieved when last let. Keep it in a folder you can produce quickly.
• If the tribunal reduces your figure, the reduced amount becomes the new rent from the date the tribunal determines, on the timing rules above.

Building a compliant rent-review workflow

Ad-hoc reminders are how landlords miss windows. A simple cadence:

When	Action
Month 10 of tenancy	Decide whether to increase; pull comparable market data
Around month 10	Settle on the figure; complete Form 4A
At least 2 months before the effective date	Serve the notice (effective date at month 12 or later)
Effective date	New rent begins; record the date for the 12-month clock
~10 months from effective date	Reminder to begin the next review cycle

For agents managing multiple properties, this is the kind of workflow that PropertyGoose’s tenancy platform supports at scale — structured, timestamped and auditable.

A recurring timing trap: the once-a-year restriction is tied to when the previous increase took effect. If your last increase took effect in March 2026, your next one cannot take effect before March 2027, regardless of when you serve the new notice.

A note on transitional tenancies

If you served a valid Section 13 notice on the old Form 4 before 1 May 2026, that notice generally remains valid on the old rules — and notably, increases under those pre-existing notices can still be backdated by the tribunal, unlike the new regime. However, any contractual rent-review clause stopped taking effect from 1 May 2026, including in agreements that started before that date. Existing tenancies with quarterly or six-monthly rent periods were also converted to monthly periods. From 1 May 2026 onwards, Form 4A is the only mechanism for a new rent increase, for everyone.

The bottom line

The Section 13 process creates a clear, auditable record that protects landlords as well as tenants. A compliant notice — served correctly, on time, at genuine market rent — is hard to challenge successfully. An incorrect one can cost you a year’s worth of an increase you were entitled to.

Get the form right, serve it early, document everything, and set your reminders a year ahead. If you want your tenancy management to be as watertight as your referencing, PropertyGoose’s tenancy lifecycle tools are designed to keep you on the right side of the rules. For the wider picture, our landlord overview is a good starting point.

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Craig Ryder is co-founder of PropertyGoose, a UK tenant referencing and tenancy management platform built by former letting agents.