Renters' Rights Act or Renters Reform Bill? Getting the name right

Three names are still in circulation and only one of them is current.

The Renters (Reform) Bill was the previous government's attempt. It fell when the July 2024 general election was called. The Renters' Rights Bill replaced it, passed through Parliament, and received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. At that point it became the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

Most landlords call it the 2026 Act because that is when it started to bite. The main provisions commenced on 1 May 2026. Both names point at the same law. If you are reading guidance that still says Bill, check the date on it, because the position has moved a long way since then.

The Act applies to private rented housing in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own systems and are not covered here.

What changed on 1 May 2026

Four things happened at once, and they happened automatically. Neither side had to do anything for the conversion to take effect.

Section 21 was abolished. You can no longer end a tenancy without giving a reason. Every possession claim now needs a statutory ground under Section 8.

Assured shorthold tenancies ceased to exist. Almost all existing ASTs converted to periodic assured tenancies on the commencement date. Fixed terms fell away with them.

Tenancies became open ended. There is no end date. The tenant can leave on two months' notice at any point. You cannot.

The rent rules changed. Rent review clauses in existing agreements stopped working. Section 13 is now the only route to an increase.

There was one exception to the automatic conversion. Where a valid Section 21 or Section 8 notice had already been served and proceedings had not concluded, the tenancy stayed an AST until those proceedings finished.

Two deadlines have now passed. Landlords had until 31 May 2026 to give every existing tenant a copy of the government information sheet, with a penalty of up to 7,000 pounds for missing it. And 31 July 2026 was the long stop for issuing court proceedings on any Section 21 notice served before commencement. After that date those notices were unenforceable, whatever expiry date was printed on them.

How you get possession now

Section 8 is the only route. You serve a notice specifying a ground, and if the tenant does not leave you go to court. Mandatory grounds oblige the court to grant possession once you prove them. Discretionary grounds leave it to the judge.

The two grounds most landlords will reach for are new or reworked, and both are slower than Section 21 ever was.

Ground 1A, selling the property. Mandatory. Four months' notice. You need a genuine settled intention to sell, and the court looks for evidence such as an estate agent instruction dated before the notice.

Ground 1, moving in yourself or a close family member. Mandatory. Four months' notice. Structured the same way as Ground 1A.

Both carry a protected period. The notice cannot expire inside the first 12 months of the tenancy. You can serve earlier, roughly from month eight, but the expiry date has to fall after the first anniversary. Get that wrong and the notice is liable to be invalid, the claim is likely to be dismissed, and you usually pay the tenant's costs and start again.

Ground 8, serious rent arrears. The threshold moved from two months to three, and it has to be met both when you serve and at the hearing. The notice period went from two weeks to four.

Plan on months, not weeks. A Ground 1A notice served at month eight of a tenancy cannot expire before month twelve, and court listing time sits on top of that.

Rent increases under Section 13

There is no cap on the amount. There are hard limits on the process.

• One increase per 12 months, and none during the first year of a tenancy.
• At least two months' notice.
• Section 13 notice only. Rent review clauses in the tenancy agreement no longer work.
• The proposed rent has to reflect what the property would achieve on the open market locally.

The tenant can challenge the figure at the First-tier Tribunal before it takes effect. The tribunal compares local properties and can set the rent lower than you asked for. In practice this means an optimistic increase is not just refused, it can be corrected downwards on the record.

Asking for rent in advance above the permitted cap is banned, as is accepting offers above the advertised rent. Advertising at one figure and inviting bidding above it is no longer legal.

Pets, discrimination and upfront payments

Three smaller changes that generate most of the day to day queries.

Pets. Tenants have a right to request one. You cannot unreasonably refuse. A refusal has to be in writing, with the reason, and it has to consider the specific request rather than apply a blanket policy. Refusing because a superior landlord prohibits pets is always reasonable.

Discrimination. Refusing a prospective tenant because they receive benefits or have children is unlawful. So is advertising in terms that signal the same thing.

Upfront payments. Rent in advance is capped. Combined with the bidding ban, the practice of screening tenants by asking for six or twelve months upfront is gone.

What is still to come

Commencement was phased, so 1 May 2026 was not the end of it.

• 15 December 2026. Registration opens for the private rented sector database. Once the scheme applies to your property, registering is a condition of letting it lawfully, and marketing an unregistered property carries penalties.
• A landlord ombudsman. Private landlords will have to join a redress scheme, with binding decisions on complaints.
• Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law. Both extend into the private rented sector in later phases, bringing minimum condition standards and fixed timescales for dealing with hazards such as damp and mould.

Rent repayment orders also got sharper. The list of offences they cover has been expanded and the maximum award has doubled from one year's rent to two.

What this does to long-let returns

None of these changes is fatal on its own. Together they alter the shape of the investment.

Rent is now a once a year decision with a tribunal sitting behind it, so the realistic assumption is market rate rather than anything above it. Voids are less predictable, because the tenant controls the exit and you largely do not. Regaining possession takes four months of notice plus court time, and only for a defined reason. Compliance cost is rising as the database, redress and condition standards land in sequence.

For a lot of landlords that is perfectly manageable. For anyone who was relying on flexible possession, on stepping rents up, or on selling with vacant possession at short notice, the model has changed.

Is a short let a realistic alternative?

It can be, and the economics often work. But there is a trap here that catches landlords who read the possession rules and the letting rules separately.

You cannot use Ground 1 or Ground 1A to get vacant possession and then short let. Both grounds carry a restricted period of 12 months running from the possession date in the notice. During that window you cannot re-let, market for letting, or allow paid occupation, and the guidance names short-term lets directly. Breach is a civil penalty of up to 7,000 pounds for a first offence and up to 40,000 pounds for continued breaches, with a rent repayment order of up to two years' rent on top. Allowing for the four month notice period, that is roughly 16 months of exposure from the day you serve.

So the switch is only available by a legitimate route:

• The tenant serves their own two months' notice and leaves.
• You and the tenant agree a consensual surrender.
• The property is already vacant, or you are buying it vacant.

The practical consequence is that this is a decision you make before your next void, not during it. If you wait until the property is empty to start working out whether a short let stacks up, you will usually re-let it long term by default.

Short lets are not automatically the better option either. The gross yield is typically higher and you keep control of the calendar, which is the thing the Act has taken away on the long-let side. Against that, income is seasonal, management is hands on, and the rules are their own subject. London properties are capped at 90 nights a year without planning permission, and other councils run licensing or planning regimes of their own.

Your compliance checklist

Work through this against every tenancy you hold in England.

• Confirm each tenancy converted to a periodic assured tenancy, and stop using AST paperwork for new lets.
• Check you issued the information sheet where the tenancy predates 1 May 2026 and had a written record of terms.
• Give written key terms to any tenant whose agreement was purely verbal.
• Move rent increases onto Section 13 notices and diarise the 12 month gap.
• Replace any blanket pet, benefits or children policy with a case by case process, with written reasons.
• Review advertising so nothing invites offers above the asking rent.
• Diarise 15 December 2026 for database registration.
• If possession is likely within the year, take advice on which ground applies and build the 12 month protected period into your timeline.

This is general information, not legal advice. For a specific possession or rent dispute, take advice from a solicitor.