What is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025?: How This Will Affect Landlords in 2026

The Renters’ Rights Bill became law in December 2024, and if you’re a private landlord, the changes coming into effect in 2026 will affect almost everything about how you manage your rental properties.

The Rights Act covers evictions, rent increases, maintenance obligations, and tenant selection. It’s meant to give the UK’s 4.6 million private rental households better security and living standards. For landlords, it means tighter restrictions and higher compliance costs, particularly for those managing assured tenancies.

The rules roll out throughout 2026, so there’s time to prepare. But many landlords are already asking whether traditional buy-to-let investments are still worth their time.

What is the Renters’ Rights Act?

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is the government’s response to years of complaints about insecurity and poor conditions in the private rental sector. It provides tenants with stronger protections and establishes higher minimum standards for rental properties, benefiting the estimated 11 million renters across England.

For landlords, it’s a major shift. England has around 2.3 million landlords, and every single one will be affected by these changes. The Act received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025, but the provisions roll out throughout 2026 in phases.

Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions are set to end in the first half of 2026, the Property Portal registration system is scheduled to launch mid-2026, and the Decent Homes Standard compliance has a longer timeline. However, landlords will need to start planning upgrades now if their properties don’t meet the requirements.

Key Changes for Private Rented Sector Landlords Under the Renters’ Rights Bill

The End of Section 21 Notices & ‘No-Fault’ Evictions

Section 21 has been an important tool for landlords since the Housing Act 1988. It allowed you to end an assured shorthold tenancy without giving a reason, as long as you gave two months’ notice and followed the correct procedure. You didn’t need to prove the tenant had done anything wrong – you could simply decide you wanted the property back, regardless of whether it was a fixed term or rolling tenancy agreement.

That option is being removed. From 2026, Section 21 will be abolished altogether.

The government is scrapping it because tenants can currently be evicted even when they’ve paid rent on time and maintained the property well. For landlords, it means losing a flexible way to regain possession. If you need the property back, you’ll have to use a Section 8 notice and provide evidence for your ground for possession.

This affects your ability to respond to changing circumstances. If you need to sell, move family in, or handle a situation where the tenancy isn’t working out, the process becomes more rigid and time-consuming. Even in cases where a tenant relationship has broken down, you’ll face longer timescales and potentially higher legal costs to resolve the situation.

Restrictions on Rent Increases

Under the new rules, you can only increase rent once a year, and the increase must adjust to market rates for similar properties in the area. Both landlords and tenants need to understand these changes, particularly for periodic tenancies where rent reviews were more flexible before.

The Section 13 notice procedure still applies, but tenants can challenge increases they consider excessive through a tribunal, which can then set a lower rent than you proposed. When you serve a Section 13 notice with your proposed rent, you’ll need to make sure it reflects genuine market rent and that you haven’t increased it within a period of 12 months.

This removes the flexibility landlords previously had. If you’re in a high-demand area where rents are rising quickly, you’re capped at one annual increase. You can’t just respond to sudden cost increases like mortgage rate changes or emergency repairs between review periods. If your tenant challenges the increase, you’ll need to justify it with evidence of similar local rents.

Stricter Eviction Grounds and Processes

With Section 21 gone, you’ll rely entirely on Section 8 grounds to evict tenants. The Act expands the grounds tenants can use to challenge evictions and extends notice periods for most eviction types. This makes it harder to serve notice and remove renters from their homes, even in legitimate circumstances.

The court process is also changing. Tenants get more opportunities to dispute eviction claims, which means longer timescales even for clear-cut cases. If you’re dealing with rent arrears, antisocial behaviour, or property damage, expect the legal process to take longer and cost more than it does now.

For landlords, this means budgeting for extended void periods during eviction proceedings. You’ll likely need legal representation for cases that previously didn’t require it. And even when you have legitimate grounds for eviction, the tenant can still challenge the process, adding weeks or months to the timeline.

Awaab’s Law: Mandatory Hazard Response Timeframes

Awaab’s Law is named after Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old who died from prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s social housing flat. The law introduces strict deadlines for fixing health hazards once a tenant reports them.

Health hazards are categorised by severity, and each category has a mandatory response time. Landlords must investigate reported hazards within set timeframes and complete repairs within deadlines that depend on the seriousness of the issue. Miss these deadlines, and you face penalties.

This affects your maintenance budget and how quickly you need to respond to tenant reports and issues like damp, mould, electrical problems, and heating failures. You’ll need systems in place to log reports, track deadlines, and arrange repairs fast. If you manage properties remotely or use letting agents, make sure your communication and responses can meet these timelines.

Decent Homes Standard Requirements

The Decent Homes Standard only currently applies to social housing, but the Act extends it to private rentals. Your property must meet specific criteria covering thermal comfort, modern facilities, and reasonable repair standards.

This means your property needs adequate heating, insulation that meets current standards, a reasonably modern kitchen and bathroom, and windows, doors, and structural elements in good repair. Older properties that haven’t been updated in years will likely need work to meet these requirements.

The timeline for compliance gives landlords some breathing room, but you should start planning now if your properties don’t meet the standard. Upgrade costs vary depending on the property’s condition. A property that needs new heating, better insulation, and a kitchen refit could easily run into tens of thousands of pounds. Properties built before 1980 or those that haven’t had significant updates will likely need the most work.

Property Portal Registration

A new national database for rental properties launches in mid-2026. Every private landlord must register their properties on this portal. It’s not optional.

You’ll need to provide landlord details, property information, proof that the property meets the required standards, and compliance certificates, such as gas safety and electrical checks. The portal creates a public record of rental properties and their compliance status.

There are penalties for failing to register, and you’ll have ongoing obligations to keep your information up to date. Any changes to the property, including new safety certificates or updates to the compliance status, must be logged on the portal.

This adds another layer of admin to property management. You’ll need to gather all the required documentation, register each property, and maintain accurate records. For landlords with multiple properties, it’s another system to manage alongside their other responsibilities.

Restrictions on Upfront Payments and Deposits

The Act caps how much rent you can request in advance and limits holding deposits, building on restrictions introduced in the Tenant Fees Act 2019. You can’t ask tenants to pay multiple months’ rent upfront anymore, even if they offer to.

This changes how you manage risk with new tenants. Previously, if someone had a poor credit history or no rental references, you could ask for several months’ rent in advance as security. That option is gone. You’re limited in what you can charge as a holding deposit, and the upfront payment restrictions mean less cash flow cushion at the start of a tenancy. This also affects how you handle ongoing rent payments throughout the tenancy.

For landlords, this means taking on more risk with tenants who might not have strong financial backgrounds. You can’t use upfront payments as a way to offset that risk anymore. It also affects your cash flow, particularly if you’re acquiring new properties or have periods with multiple tenancies starting at once.

Discrimination Protections

The Act bans blanket policies that exclude tenants with children or those receiving benefits. You can’t have a blanket “no DSS” or “no children” policy anymore.

You can still consider individual circumstances when selecting tenants, but you need legitimate reasons and evidence to support any refusal. E.g. you can refuse a tenant if their benefit income doesn’t cover the rent, but you can’t refuse them simply because they receive benefits. The same applies to families with children – you need a valid reason related to the specific property or tenancy, not a blanket ban.

This opens you up to potential discrimination claims if you’re not careful about how you select tenants and document your reasons. You’ll need to show that any refusal is based on objective criteria, not protected qualities. Keep clear records of your tenant selection process and the reasons for any decisions you make.

Bidding Ban

The Act prohibits rental bidding wars. You can’t encourage or accept offers from prospective tenants to pay more than your advertised rent.

In high-demand areas where multiple people want the same property, landlords have sometimes let tenants bid against each other or accepted higher offers than the asking rent. That’s now illegal. You must rent at the advertised price.

This affects your ability to achieve true market rates in competitive areas. If you’ve got ten people wanting to rent your property, you can’t use that demand to increase the rent beyond what you advertised. You’re locked into the price you listed, even if the market would clearly support more.

How will this affect buy-to-let landlords & letting agents?

These changes represent a shift in how buy-to-let investment works. The Act aims to improve conditions for tenants, but it also changes the economics and day-to-day reality for landlords operating in the new private rented sector. Private renters gain new rights, while landlords and agents face additional responsibilities, with many provisions taking effect from 1 May 2026.

Your flexibility reduces across the board as eviction processes become longer and more complex, rent increases are limited to once a year, maintenance requirements have strict deadlines and property standards need to meet higher thresholds. There’s more admin – portal registration, detailed record-keeping, and documented tenant selection processes.

The financial impact will vary by property and location, but most landlords can expect to see their costs rise. Legal fees can increase when eviction processes take longer, maintenance budgets must account for Awaab’s Law response times, and older properties may need investment to meet the Decent Homes Standard. There’s also the time cost of managing additional compliance requirements.

For some landlords, these changes are manageable, but for others, particularly those with older properties or thin margins, the new requirements make buy-to-let less viable as an investment. Industry bodies report growing numbers of landlords selling up or reconsidering their strategies, especially those who saw rental property as a relatively hands-off income stream.