"During the Bill's passage through the House of Commons and House of Lords, many attempts were made to introduce amendments, but very few of these have been included, meaning very few of the issues raised by landlords have been directly addressed."
- Mark Holloway - Foot Antsey LLP
The Renters’ Rights Bill received Royal Assent on 27th October 2025. The new rules are not yet in force, with ministers to outline over the following weeks how and when the reforms will be rolled out.
The rules must strike a balance between safeguarding tenants from unfair practices and sub-standard properties, and giving landlords enough protection to ensure that investment into the sector is sufficient to prevent a shortage of rental properties.
Tenants have welcomed many of the changes being brought in by the new Act, particularly the abolition of 'no fault' evictions and the stronger safeguards around termination of tenancies by landlords.
For landlords, despite government claims, the picture is less encouraging. There are a number of points which may reduce landlords' returns, including:
· New rules around rent increases – considered in more detail below;
· Landlord database registration requirements, which will be an additional administrative step for landlords;
· The removal of a minimum term for tenants, meaning that they can serve notice to terminate at any time, which could lead to more vacant periods for landlords;
· A ban on 'rent bidding', the process by which prospective tenants can offer a rent above the advertised rate in order to be selected as the tenant;
· An increase in the number of months of rent arrears before a landlord can start an eviction process from 2 to 3.
Rent increases:
In trying to prevent landlords from unfairly increasing rents, the government has stripped away some key protections. The government's stated intention is to prevent unscrupulous landlords from using rent increases as a backdoor means of eviction.
To do this, they have made it easier for tenants to challenge rent increases, and in the event of a challenge, the tribunal will no longer be able to set a rent higher than the level requested by the landlord. Previously, the tribunal could determine a rent above the level requested by the landlord should the market rent be above the requested figure.
Where the tenant makes a challenge, the new rent will only apply from the date of the tribunal's determination, rather than being backdated to the date of the landlord's request. This effectively removes the risk for the tenant in making a challenge and means that they can delay the rent increase by doing so.
This is particularly concerning for landlords, given the potential for the Tribunal to be deluged by additional rent increase challenges, which could cause further delays. The government has announced that it will create an alternative body to handle these rent increase challenges to relieve pressure on the Tribunal, but has not yet announced details.
This has been of strong concern for landlords, and whilst an amendment was made to the Act on this point during its passage through the House of Lords, this was limited to giving the Secretary of State a power to specify a different date from which the new rent is paid (e.g. to backdate it). However, the government has stated that this power will only be used if the Tribunal is overwhelmed.
Will the new rules discourage investment in the BTR sector?
Since the legislation was first proposed, concerns have been raised by landlords and bodies representing them about the impact of the new rules. During the Bill's passage through the House of Commons and House of Lords, many attempts were made to introduce amendments, but very few of these have been included, meaning very few of the issues raised by landlords have been directly addressed.
BTR operators may be in a better position than private landlords to manage the additional risks introduced by the Act, since they will be professionally run and advised and can better balance the risks of lower income and vacancy periods across what is typically a large number of units.
However, investment into the BTR sector is currently facing strong headwinds due to a number of other factors, such as viability challenges, interest rates and regulatory pressures. This new legislation is unlikely to alleviate any of the concerns which are preventing investors from committing funds to BTR projects.
The government sees the new rules as creating a level playing field between landlords and tenants, but they may have tipped the balance too far in favour of tenants, which could lead to underinvestment in the sector and consequential further shortages of rental properties.
