What letting agents must do differently since 1 May 2026

Most coverage of the Renters' Rights Act explains what the law now says. Letting agents need something narrower than that, which is what has to be done differently on an ordinary Tuesday morning, and what it costs to get wrong. Eight things have genuinely changed.

What is different in the branch

Every tenancy rolls. Assured shorthold tenancies went on 1 May 2026 and assured periodic tenancies replaced them. Existing tenancies converted on the day, fixed terms fell away, and no re-papering was needed. There is no longer a renewal season.

Section 21 is gone. Possession runs on the section 8 grounds and has to be justified. Grounds 1 and 1A, the landlord moving in or selling, need four months' notice and cannot bite in the first twelve months of a tenancy. Re-letting a property recovered on those grounds carries civil penalties reaching £40,000.

Tenants leave when they choose. Two months' written notice, at any point, expiring at the end of a rental period. Your check-out diary is now driven by other people's decisions rather than by the terms you signed.

Rent reviews in the agreement are dead letters. Existing review clauses, including RPI and CPI mechanisms, have no effect. An increase has to go through the statutory section 13 route instead.

Tenants can challenge the rent. A tenant may take a proposed increase to the First-tier Tribunal, which can confirm or reduce it. It cannot raise it, which removes the old deterrent entirely.

No bidding. A property has to be advertised at a fixed rent, and an offer above that figure cannot be accepted. Breaches carry civil penalties of up to £7,000, rising to £40,000 for a repeated breach.

Rent in advance is capped. Nothing may be taken before the agreement is signed. After signing, one month's rent in advance is the limit, and any term in the tenancy requiring more than that is void.

Pets are a live conversation. Tenants have a new right to request one, and a refusal has to be reasonable and defensible rather than a house rule.

Where letting agents are getting caught

The changes above are well publicised. The ones causing trouble in branches are quieter.

The first is scheduling. Notices arrive across the whole year now, rather than clustering in a summer peak, and two months is the entire planning window. Branches that treated check-out appointments as a seasonal job are finding they need a supplier who works to somebody else's dates.

The second is evidence. With no fixed term, tenancies simply run, and the gap between the check-in report and the check-out can be years rather than months. The document written on day one is carrying far more weight than it used to, for far longer.

The third is the paper trail on condition. Awaab's Law does not yet apply to the private sector. The Government has said it will consult before setting a date, and commentators put 2027 as the earliest realistic point. Branches that start logging condition reports and response times now will not have to invent a history later.

What to fix first

1. Book the check-out the day the notice lands. The date is knowable two months out even when nothing else is.
2. Audit your check-in reports. Any report that cannot be read line by line against a later visit is a liability on a tenancy that might run five years.
3. Put interim inspections on a schedule. With no renewal point, nothing else prompts anybody to look at the property.
4. Write down the reasoning on pets and on rent increases. Both are now challengeable, and a note made at the time is worth more than a recollection made later.

None of this is dramatic. It is the same work, moved to dates nobody controls, with sharper penalties sitting behind the parts that used to be informal.

What the rolling tenancy does to the end of a let is worth its own read: check-out reports on a rolling tenancy.

Emilecon writes inventories, check-in and check-out reports and mid-term inspections for letting agents across every London postcode, Monday to Saturday, with the report delivered within 3 hours of the visit. When a notice lands on an awkward date, book the slot and it is held.

Sources: the Renters' Rights Act: an overview for landlords on GOV.UK, key provisions from LexisNexis, and Awaab's Law and the Decent Homes Standard from Burges Salmon. This is general information, not legal advice.