England · private rented sector
What’s changed in the law
1 May 2026 — the big one
Section 21 is gone
There is no longer a no-fault route to possession. Every possession claim now runs on a ground under section 8, with its own notice period — four months for moving in or selling, four weeks for three months’ rent arrears, immediate proceedings for severe anti-social behaviour.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
Every tenancy is periodic from the start
Fixed terms are gone. A tenancy runs periodically from the first day, so there is no renewal event, no end of term and nothing to re-sign each year.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
The How to Rent guide was withdrawn
There is nothing to serve and nothing to re-serve. The version tracking that used to matter no longer exists — see the Written Statement of Terms below, which replaces it.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
The Written Statement of Terms replaces it
Every new tenancy needs one, served before the tenancy is entered into. It has to set out the parties, the address, the date of possession, the rent and when it is paid, your service address, a statement that rent rises go through a section 13 notice, the deposit, termination provisions and notice periods, which bills the tenant pays, your repair obligations, the gas and electrical safety information, Equality Act 2010 disability-adaptation rights, and pet request rights.
Getting it wrong costs up to £7,000, with a starting point of £4,000 for a first breach. Carry on for more than 28 days and it becomes an offence or a £40,000 penalty; repeat it within five years and it is £40,000.
Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025, Sch. 6 para. 7
Rent in advance is capped
No rent may be taken before the agreement is signed. Between signing and move-in, the most you can take is one month’s rent. A term inside a tenancy requiring rent in advance has no effect. Up to £5,000, or £30,000 for repeats.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
Rent-review clauses in the tenancy stopped working
A section 13 notice on Form 4A is the only way to raise the rent: at least two months’ notice, once every 52 weeks, and not at all in the first 12 months of a new tenancy. Whatever the agreement says about annual increases has no effect.Legal basis: Housing Act 1988, s.13
The deposit rules got sharper teeth
The duties are unchanged: protect the deposit within 30 days and serve the prescribed information within 30 days, both counted from the day the money arrives, not the day the tenancy starts.
What changed is the consequence. With section 21 abolished, an unprotected deposit or unserved prescribed information now blocks a possession order under section 8 — the only exception being the anti-social-behaviour grounds. The stakes went up, not down.
Legal basis: Housing Act 2004, ss.213–215
The EICR penalty rose to £40,000
For offences on or after 1 May 2026. It was £30,000, and a good deal of guidance still says so.Legal basis: Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020/312), reg 11
The HMO civil penalty rose to £40,000
Also up from £30,000. GOV.UK’s published starting point for an unlicensed mandatory HMO is £17,000, and a Rent Repayment Order of up to 12 months’ rent can sit on top.Legal basis: Housing Act 2004, Part 2
Rent Repayment Orders doubled to 24 months’ rent
The maximum was 12 months. Tenants have a two-year window in which to apply.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
Pet requests run on a 28-day clock
A written request needs a written answer within 28 days, and consent cannot be unreasonably withheld. It is event-driven: the clock starts when the tenant asks.Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025
October 2026 — EPCs are being rebuilt
- Slated for October 2026
Reformed EPCs carry four headline metrics
An EPC stops being one letter. The reformed certificate reports four separate things — energy cost, fabric performance, heating system and smart readiness — and the single A–G rating carries on alongside them through the transition.
Nothing else about EPCs moves. Still valid ten years, still needed when you market and when you let, still a £200 penalty for a dwelling without one, and the minimum rating for an existing tenancy is still band E.
Legal basis: Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012
15 December 2026 — the PRS Database opens
Registration opens, West Midlands first
You create one landlord entry, which is free, and one dwelling entry for each property at £65 per property per year. Each entry gets its own registration number, and both have to be active before a property can be advertised. Every written advertisement then has to carry both numbers.
Registration opens region by region, 3 months at a time, from 15 December 2026 to 14 November 2027. West Midlands landlords have until 14 March 2027. Failing to register is a penalty of up to £7,000; knowingly or recklessly giving false or misleading information is up to £40,000. Entries have to be updated within 28 days of anything in them going out of date.
One detail that catches multi-property landlords: renewal is anchored to your first dwelling entry, not to each property’s own anniversary. Properties added later are pro-rated in year one and then renew on the first property’s date.
The Regulations were still in draft on 12 September 2026, so the fee, the dates and the region mapping can all still move. Check your council’s deadline, or start on the GOV.UK Housing Hub.
Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025, ss.82, 91, 92
You register on the government service yourself. Indate cannot submit a registration on your behalf, and nor can a letting agent — the landlord must do it personally.
Indate is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to GOV.UK, HM Government or any local authority.
Coming, but not law yet
- Proposed: 1 October 2030Not yet law
A minimum EPC of band C
Confirmed as policy, not made as law. One date for new and existing tenancies alike — the earlier 2028 and 2030 split was dropped, so there is no two-stage timetable to plan around. The government is targeting 2027 to make the regulations.
As proposed: a £10,000 cost cap, with spending from 1 October 2025 counting towards it, a Property Value Adjustment exemption capping spend at 10% of value below £100,000, and a maximum penalty of £30,000 per property per breach. Today’s minimum is still band E, and has been for every existing tenancy since 1 April 2020.
Legal basis: Consultation response, January 2026 (Warm Homes Plan)
- Expected operational 2028Not yet law
A PRS Landlord Ombudsman
Membership will be compulsory for private landlords, with £7,000 and £40,000 penalty tiers, once it exists. No scheme administrator has been appointed yet. There is nothing to join.Legal basis: Draft regulations laid 28 April 2026
- 2027 at the earliestNot yet law
Awaab’s Law for the private rented sector
Awaab’s Law has applied to social landlords since 27 October 2025. It does not apply to private landlords. The Act carries a power to extend it, scheduled for a later phase and subject to consultation.
What does bind a private landlord on the condition of a property today: the implied covenant under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, the repairing obligation under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 — which says “reasonable time”, not a fixed number of hours — and HHSRS enforcement by the local authority.
Legal basis: Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (delegated power)
- Targeted around 2035Not yet law
A Decent Homes Standard for the PRS
A later phase of the same programme. No detail, no date in law.
Things you may have been told that are not true
- Not true
“You need a legionella test certificate, renewed every two years”
There is no such thing in law. The HSE is explicit that health and safety law
does not require landlords to obtain or produce a ‘legionella test certificate’
, and does not prescribe reviewing the risk assessment annually or every two years.What is true: you should assess the risk, and for most rented homes the landlord can do that themselves. The NRLA’s own checklist says two years, which conflicts with the enforcing authority. Indate holds this as an assessment on file with a review date you set — never a countdown, never a red state.
Legal basis: Health and Safety Executive guidance
- Not true
“PAT testing is compulsory”
Not in an English residential let. The duty is to keep the electrical equipment you supply in a safe condition, and portable appliance testing is one way of showing you have — not a requirement in itself. It becomes compulsory only when a licence condition says so. It is mandatory in Scotland, which is where much of the confusion comes from.Legal basis: Landlord and Tenant Act 1985; Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016
- Not true
“A gas cooker means you need a carbon monoxide alarm”
A gas cooker is expressly excluded. The rule is a CO alarm in any room containing a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker — so a gas boiler or a wood burner, yes; a gas hob, no. This is the single most common error in landlord software.Legal basis: Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/1693), reg 4, as amended by SI 2022/707
- Not true
“You have to test the alarms every year”
There is no annual landlord alarm-testing duty. The duty falls on the day the tenancy begins, for new tenancies: check that each alarm works. After that, if you are told an alarm is faulty, repair or replace it as soon as reasonably practicable. The penalty is up to £5,000 — it did not rise to £40,000 with the other penalties.Legal basis: SI 2015/1693, reg 4 and reg 8(2)
- Not true
“An HMO licence only applies to three storeys or more”
The three-storey test was abolished on 1 October 2018 and storeys are now irrelevant. Mandatory licensing applies where five or more people in more than one household share a toilet, bathroom or kitchen and at least one of them pays rent — bungalow, flat or townhouse alike. Councils also run their own additional and selective schemes, which no app can predict for you.Legal basis: Licensing of HMOs (Prescribed Descriptions) (England) Order 2018
- Not true
“There is a grace period on a gas safety record”
None exists. The record is valid 12 months from the date of the check, and a lapsed record is a breach from the day it lapses.
Reg 36A is often mistaken for one, and it works in the opposite direction. A check made in the two months before your deadline keeps your existing anniversary, so the new deadline is twelve months after the old one. A check made earlier than that resets the clock to the day of the check, and the anniversary you had is gone for good. Inspect three months early every year and your deadline walks quietly backwards.
Legal basis: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, reg 36 and reg 36A (SI 2018/139)
- Not true
“The fine for a gas safety breach is £6,000”
That figure has been stale since 12 March 2015, when summary fines were uncapped. HSE prosecutions are sentenced under the turnover-linked health and safety guideline. It is an unlimited fine and possible imprisonment, which is why Indate shows no number here.Legal basis: Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, s.33(1)(c)
- Not true
“An annual boiler service is a legal requirement”
It is not, and it is not the same thing as the annual gas safety check. Servicing a boiler is sensible and often required by the manufacturer’s warranty. It is not the law, so Indate tracks it as an optional reminder and never as a duty. - Not true
“You still have to serve the How to Rent guide”
It was withdrawn on 1 May 2026. There is no current version, so there is nothing to serve and nothing to re-serve. The Written Statement of Terms is what a new tenancy needs now. - Not true
“The EICR penalty is £30,000”
£40,000 for offences on or after 1 May 2026. The older figure is still printed in a lot of guidance. - Not true
“EPC C has two dates — 2028 for new tenancies, 2030 for existing”
That split was dropped. There is one proposed date, 1 October 2030, for new and existing tenancies alike — and it is not law yet. - Not true
“Awaab’s Law gives me fixed repair timescales to meet”
Not as a private landlord. Awaab’s Law applies to the social rented sector. The timescales you may have read about are not yours to meet, and no private-sector equivalent has been made.
Indate helps you keep track of dates and documents. It is not legal advice. You remain responsible for meeting your legal obligations.
Indate is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to GOV.UK, HM Government or any local authority.
Researched and last checked on . England only — Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate regimes and none of the above should be read across to them. Spotted something out of date? Tell us at [email protected].