Insights · 21 July 2026 · Ejas Deane
The How to Rent guide was withdrawn, and much of the industry has not noticed
Three months into the Renters’ Rights Act, the compliance pack most agents were handed is out of date. Here is what actually has to be served now, and what has to be provable.
On 1 May 2026 the first and largest phase of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 commenced, and the How to Rent guide was withdrawn the same day. The gov.uk page now carries a single line explaining that it has gone. A great deal of lettings compliance content published before that date, including a good deal that is still being circulated as current, tells agents to serve a document that no longer exists.
Two things replaced it, and they are not interchangeable.
For a new tenancy: the written statement of terms
It must be given before the tenancy is signed, not with the keys. It covers the rent and any other payments, the details of the landlord, the tenant and the property, how the tenancy may be ended, the landlord’s obligation to keep the property in a safe condition, and the tenant’s right to request a pet or an adaptation. In practice most agents have folded it into the agreement itself, which is fine, so long as it genuinely arrives first.
For an existing tenancy: the Information Sheet
The government published the Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 in March and it had to be served on existing tenants by 31 May 2026. The penalty for failing to serve it is a local authority civil penalty of up to seven thousand pounds. The part that catches people is not the serving. It is that an agent must be able to prove it was served correctly, which means the evidence has to have been captured at the time, in a system, against the tenancy.
That is the shape of the whole Act, really. Very little of it is difficult. Almost all of it is dated, and almost all of it has to be evidenced afterwards by someone who was not in the room.
What else moved
- Section 21 is abolished. The last valid notice could be served on 30 April 2026, and the window for issuing proceedings on a notice already served closed on 31 July 2026.
- Assured shorthold tenancies no longer exist. Existing ones converted automatically to assured periodic tenancies on 1 May, and a fixed term cannot be granted at all, even where both parties want one.
- Rent increases run on a Section 13 notice and nothing else: once in twelve months, two months’ notice, challengeable at the First-tier Tribunal. Contractual review clauses are unenforceable.
- Rent in advance is capped at one month, and no rent may be taken before the tenancy is signed.
- Rental bidding is banned. The advertised rent is the ceiling.
- Local authority civil penalties run to seven thousand pounds for a first breach and forty thousand for repeated or serious ones.
The commercial consequence is the one nobody put in a press release. Renewals have gone, and the renewal fee went with them, while the administration behind a tenancy has grown. The income line that used to pay for the person doing the paperwork is not there any more, and the paperwork is.
Very little of this Act is difficult. Almost all of it is dated, and almost all of it has to be evidenced afterwards by someone who was not in the room.
We are not going to pretend that an administrator in Pristina solves a policy problem. What an administrator does solve is the evidencing: serving on the day, recording the service against the tenancy, and having the record ready before anybody asks for it. That work is recurring, procedural and judged by whether the date was met, which is the only test we apply before taking anything on.
If your compliance pack still lists the How to Rent guide, it is worth an hour of somebody’s afternoon this week.
Ejas Deane is a partner of the firm. He answers enquiries himself.