Renters Rights

The key changes that are taking place in private rented accommodation on the 1^st May 2026 include:

• The type of tenancy agreement offered by accommodation providers, to rent their property is changing.

All fixed term Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements this will be replaced with rolling periodic Assured Tenancy agreements that are not for a fixed period (e.g. 12 months) and have no formal end date.

Instead, a tenancy will be granted on a rolling basis (normally monthly) and can only be ended if either:

• you and your landlord decide together to end the tenancy called a ‘surrender’.
• you end your tenancy by giving two months’ notice
• your landlord ends it, but they can only do this if they have a valid legal reason to do so, for example you have rent arrears, causing antisocial behaviour or the landlord wishes to sell the property*. Landlords can no longer issue Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions.

* Student landlords may be able to evict you using possession ground 4A if you live in a rented property with only other full-time students and they want to let the property to other students. They will only be able to do this at the end of the academic year if they have told you at the start of your tenancy, they may do this and must give you four months’ notice ending between 1 June and 30 September.

If your landlord wants to evict you using this ground at the end of this academic year 2025/26 they must tell you they wish to use ground 4a by the 31^st May 2026 then serve you a notice seeking possession between 1^st May and 30^th July 2026  giving you at least two months’ notice.
 

• To end the new periodic tenancy and move out, you must give two full months’ notice in writing to the accommodation provider.

As tenancy agreements will not have fixed end dates you will need to give your landlord at least two full months’ notice ending on the last day of a rental period to end your agreement. This will include current agreements that had been fixed term Assured Shorthold Tenancies before the 1^st May 2026.

Each monthly period of your tenancy will start on the same day of the month as your tenancy started.  In most cases, this will be the date you were entitled to move into the property.  

As an example if your tenancy started on the 5^th July you wished to leave on 4^th June the following year you would need to issue your notice on the 5^th April at the latest for it be valid.

The quickest and easiest way of doing is by sending your notice to your landlord by emails, text, or WhatsApp as if this is done before 16:30 on a business day it should be considered as received that day. If you choose to serve notice by post, it is deemed to be served the 2nd business day after posting so you will need to post your notice earlier to account for this.

These changes take effect from 1^st May 2026 so will impact your current tenancy; this means you will likely need to give notice this summer to end your current contract.

Action you may need to take from 1 May 2026
If your current fixed-term tenancy is due to end on 30 June, you’ll need to act to give notice on 1^st May 2026 when it becomes a rolling tenancy. If you miss this date you may end up having to pay rent for a further month.

Alternatively, you and your housemates may be able to come to an arrangement end your agreement earlier with your landlord by agreeing a mutual surrender.

If you intend to leave your accommodation this summer, it is advisable to contact your accommodation provider to discuss the end of your tenancy and agree an end date. Read more about giving notice.

A private landlord can no longer ask you to pay more than one month’s rent in advance

A landlord can only increase the rent once per year by issuing a Section 13 notice with at least two months’ notice. Any increase should not be more than the open market rent, and you can challenge any increase to a tribunal if you think it is too high.

A landlord can no longer unreasonably refuse a request for you to keep a pet. If they refuse, they must inform you in writing and should tell you the reason why..