Renting: the law, the rights, the agreements
Every rule between a landlord and a tenant in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, read on Homebinding, and the tenancy agreements themselves, generated on the site from your answers.
The assured shorthold tenancy is gone. Here is what replaced it.
The Renters' Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025 and its new tenancy system took effect on 1 May 2026. From that day every private tenancy of a home in England is a periodic assured tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 as amended: there are no fixed terms and no section 21 notices. A landlord can end a tenancy only on a ground in Schedule 2 to the 1988 Act, proved in court, with the notice periods the Act sets: among them the landlord or a close family member moving in, a sale, redevelopment, serious rent arrears, antisocial behaviour, and breach of the tenancy. A tenant ends the tenancy with two months' notice at any time.
Rent can rise once a year by a section 13 notice, to the market rent and no higher, and a tenant can challenge the figure at the First-tier Tribunal before it takes effect. Rent in advance is limited to one month. Asking for bids above the advertised rent is banned. A landlord may not refuse a tenant because they have children or receive benefits, and may not unreasonably refuse a pet. The Act also created a private rented sector database that every landlord must join, an ombudsman every landlord must belong to, a Decent Homes Standard for private lettings and Awaab's Law timescales for hazards; those parts commence by regulation and the site will say when each is in force.
The landlord's duties, each with its Act
| Duty | What it means | The law |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit protection | Any deposit must be placed in one of the three approved schemes within 30 days and the prescribed information given to the tenant; a landlord who fails can be ordered to pay up to three times the deposit | Housing Act 2004, sections 212 to 215; Tenancy deposit protection |
| Deposit cap and fees | A deposit of no more than five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000 (six weeks above); no fees to the tenant except rent, the deposit, a holding deposit of up to one week, and the few permitted payments | Tenant Fees Act 2019 |
| Repairs | The landlord keeps the structure and exterior, and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, heating and hot water, in repair | Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 11 |
| Fitness | The home must be fit for human habitation when let and throughout; the tenant can sue for a home that is not | Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 |
| Gas | An annual gas safety check by a Gas Safe engineer and the record given to the tenant | Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 |
| Electricity | An electrical installation condition report at least every five years, given to the tenant | Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 |
| Alarms | A smoke alarm on every storey and a carbon monoxide alarm in every room with a fixed combustion appliance, working on the first day | Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 |
| Energy | An energy performance certificate given to the tenant, and a rating of E or better unless an exemption is registered | Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) Regulations 2015; Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2012 |
| Right to Rent | A check of every adult occupier's right to rent before the tenancy starts | Immigration Act 2014 |
| How to Rent | The government's guide given to the tenant at the start | How to rent |
| Houses in multiple occupation | A licence for any HMO with five or more people from two or more households, and where the council has an additional or selective scheme, for smaller ones too | Housing Act 2004, Part 2 |
| Quiet enjoyment | No entry without 24 hours' written notice except in emergency; no harassment; eviction only by court order | Protection from Eviction Act 1977 |
| Fire safety in flats and HMOs | A fire risk assessment for the common parts | Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 |
| Older tenancies | Tenancies that began before 15 January 1989 are regulated tenancies with fair rents and lifetime security | Rent Act 1977 |
Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland
Wales
Since 1 December 2022 a tenant in Wales is a contract holder under an occupation contract, standard or secure, under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. The landlord must give a written statement of the contract within 14 days, keep the home fit for human habitation with working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and a five yearly electrical report, and register and be licensed with Rent Smart Wales. A no fault notice needs six months and cannot be served in the first six months. Fees are banned by the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019.
Scotland
Every private tenancy that began on or after 1 December 2017 is a private residential tenancy under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016: open ended, with no fixed term, ended by the tenant on 28 days' notice and by the landlord only on one of the eighteen grounds in Schedule 3, decided by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland. Rent can rise once a year on three months' notice and the tenant can refer it to a rent officer. Landlords register with the council. Older tenancies remain assured or short assured under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988. Deposits go to one of the three Scottish schemes within 30 working days under the tenancy deposit regulations made under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006; the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 moved private tenancy disputes to the tribunal.
Northern Ireland
The Private Tenancies Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 amended the Private Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 2006: a written tenancy statement within 28 days, receipts for cash, a deposit of no more than one month's rent protected within 28 days, rent increases no more than once a year on three months' notice, longer notice to quit for longer tenancies, and smoke, heat and carbon monoxide alarms. Every landlord registers with the Landlord Registration Scheme.
Ireland
The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 and the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 govern private tenancies. Every tenancy is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, which also decides disputes. After six months a tenancy becomes a Part 4 tenancy with security of tenure, and tenancies created from 11 June 2022 are of unlimited duration. Notice periods rise with the length of the tenancy, and a landlord may end a tenancy only on the grounds in the Act. In a rent pressure zone rent rises are capped, and the government extended rent pressure zone rules to the whole country in 2025. A deposit is one month's rent and rent in advance one month.
Generate a tenancy agreement on the record
Choose the nation and the kind of letting, answer the questions, and the agreement is written below in the form the law of that nation requires. On the live site both parties sign it electronically on the record, the deposit is protected from the same screen, and the documents the landlord must give (the gas record, the electrical report, the EPC, How to Rent) are attached to it.
Your rights, in one place
Before you move in
A written agreement; the deposit protected and the certificate; the gas record, the electrical report, the EPC, and in England the How to Rent guide; working alarms; a home fit to live in; no fees beyond the permitted ones; a holding deposit of no more than a week's rent, returned or credited.
While you live there
Quiet enjoyment: no entry without notice except in an emergency. Repairs done in a reasonable time, and the council's environmental health team where they are not. A rent rise only by the procedure the Act sets and only to a market rent, with the tribunal to check it. The right to a pet unless refusal is reasonable. No discrimination for children or benefits.
When it ends
Two months' notice from you in England, 28 days in Scotland. From the landlord, only a ground in the Act, with the notice the Act requires, and a court or tribunal order before you have to leave. Your deposit back within ten days of agreement, or the scheme's adjudication. A landlord who evicts without an order commits a crime and owes you damages.
Homes to rent Rooms and flatmates Holiday lets
This page describes the law as it stands on Homebinding's reading date; each Act is read in full on the site, and where a provision of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 is not yet commenced the Act's own page says so. It is not legal advice. For a dispute, a solicitor, a law centre or Shelter advises tenants, and a solicitor or the landlord associations advise landlords.
The shape of a tenancy under the new regime
With the fixed term gone, a private letting of a home in England is an assured tenancy running periodically from the start. The tenant pays rent in periods, usually monthly, and the tenancy continues until the tenant gives notice or the landlord obtains possession on a ground the law allows.
The landlord's route out is the schedule of grounds carried over from the Housing Act 1988 and rewritten by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. Mandatory grounds oblige the judge to make an order once the facts are proved: serious rent arrears, the landlord or a close family member genuinely needing to move in, a decision to sell. Discretionary grounds leave the judge to weigh whether eviction is reasonable at all: persistent late payment, breach, damage, nuisance. Notice periods vary by ground, and the selling and moving in grounds cannot be used in the opening months. Rather than quote figures still bedding in, take it that serious arrears carry a short notice and the no fault style grounds a notice measured in months, and check the period on the ground itself. This is not advice.
Rent can be raised once in any twelve month period, by statutory notice proposing a new rent from a date the prescribed period ahead. A tenant who thinks the figure is above market can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) before it takes effect, and the tribunal determines the open market rent. Agreements cannot build in automatic escalators: rent rises should not work as a back door eviction.
Bidding, blanket bans and pets
Rental bidding is banned: the landlord or agent must publish an asking rent and must not invite or accept offers above it, which ends advertising low and running an auction on the doorstep. Blanket bans on letting to families with children or to people receiving benefits are prohibited, in the advert and in the decision, though an individual applicant's ability to pay may still be assessed. And a tenant has a right to request permission to keep a pet, which the landlord must consider, answer in writing within the prescribed time, and may not unreasonably refuse.
Alongside these sit reforms still being brought into force. The Decent Homes Standard, long applied to social housing, is being extended to private lettings: free of the most serious hazards, in reasonable repair, with reasonably modern facilities and efficient heating. Awaab's Law, requiring damp, mould and other prescribed hazards to be investigated and put right within fixed timescales, is being extended in the same direction. Both arrive in stages by regulations, so check what has actually commenced.
Two pieces of machinery are being set up: a private rented sector database holding an entry for every landlord and let property in England, and a single landlord ombudsman handling tenant complaints free of charge, able to order an apology, remedial action or compensation, with membership compulsory. Until each is switched on, a complaint runs to the landlord, then environmental health, then the courts.
Deposits, and what a landlord may charge
Protection
A deposit must be protected in one of the government approved tenancy deposit schemes, a duty introduced by the Housing Act 2004. Each of the three runs a custodial option, where the scheme holds the money, and an insured option, where the landlord holds and insures it. Protection must happen within the prescribed period after the deposit is received, and the tenant must be given the prescribed information: the scheme, the amount, the address, contact details, and how the money is recovered at the end.
The penalties are real. A tenant or former tenant can apply to the county court, which orders the deposit repaid or protected and orders the landlord to pay a further sum set as a multiple of the deposit, the multiplier reflecting how culpable the failure was. Failure to protect also blocks some possession routes. At the end the deposit is returned subject to agreed deductions, and every scheme offers free adjudication, which turns almost entirely on the inventory, the check out report and dated photographs.
The fee ban
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps the deposit at a number of weeks' rent, with a lower cap where the annual rent reaches a high threshold, and bans nearly every other payment: viewings, referencing, credit and right to rent checks, inventories, drawing up the agreement, renewal, check out. A short list survives: the rent; the deposit within the cap; a holding deposit of no more than one week's rent, refundable or set against rent or deposit except in limited cases; payments for a variation, assignment or surrender the tenant asked for, capped or limited to the landlord's loss; council tax, utilities, communications and the television licence where the agreement provides; a default fee for a lost key or security device, limited to the reasonable cost evidenced in writing; and interest on rent more than fourteen days late, capped by reference to the base rate.
A prohibited payment must be repaid. Trading standards enforce, with a penalty for a first breach and a higher one or prosecution for repeats, and while an unlawful payment is outstanding some possession routes are closed.
Documents, and the checks a landlord must make
Four documents should reach the tenant at or before the start. The How to Rent guide must be given in its current edition, and an out of date version counts as not given. A gas safety record from a Gas Safe registered engineer, following the annual check required by the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, must be given before the tenant moves in and after each yearly check. An energy performance certificate must be provided under the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012, and a property below the minimum band cannot lawfully be let without a registered exemption under the Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations 2015. An electrical installation condition report under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 is needed at least every five years, with a copy to the tenant. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms must be fitted and tested at the start.
A landlord in England must also carry out a right to rent check under the Immigration Act 2014 before granting a tenancy, confirming every adult occupier may be in the United Kingdom. It is done against original documents, through the Home Office online service where the person has a share code, or by an identity service provider, and it must be done for everyone: checking selectively is race discrimination. Follow up checks apply where the right is time limited, and letting to a disqualified person without a correct check brings a civil penalty and, in serious cases, prosecution.
HMOs, selective licensing and rent repayment orders
A house in multiple occupation is broadly a property occupied by three or more people in more than one household who share a kitchen or bathroom. Under Part 2 of the Housing Act 2004 the larger ones, occupied by five or more people in two or more households, need a mandatory licence, and many councils run additional licensing pulling in smaller shared houses across a designated area. Licences carry conditions on amenity standards, room sizes, fire precautions, waste and management, and the holder must be a fit and proper person. Part 3 allows selective licensing, where a council designates an area and requires a licence for every private letting in it. Both are local, so the council's designation map is the only reliable answer.
Letting an unlicensed property that needs a licence is an offence, and opens the landlord to a rent repayment order from the First-tier Tribunal requiring up to twelve months of rent to be repaid to the tenant, or to the council where benefit paid it. These orders also cover unlawful eviction and harassment, breach of an improvement notice or prohibition order, and breach of a banning order, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 having extended them and created the banning order regime behind them. The tenant applies directly, and no conviction is needed provided the tribunal is sure the offence was committed.
Retaliation, illegal eviction and the court process
A tenant who complains about disrepair should not lose their home for it. The Deregulation Act 2015 built retaliatory eviction protection around the old no fault notice, and the principle survives in a different form: possession now needs a ground, and a discretionary ground argued in the shadow of an outstanding environmental health notice is a weak case. The tenant reports the problem in writing, keeps the reply, and if nothing follows asks environmental health to inspect under the housing health and safety rating system in the Housing Act 2004, which can produce an improvement notice or prohibition order. The tenant can also sue on section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and on the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018.
Eviction without a court order is a crime. Under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 it is an offence to deprive a residential occupier of occupation unlawfully, and an offence to harass an occupier or withdraw services intending to make them leave or stop them exercising their rights: changing locks, removing doors, cutting off utilities, entering repeatedly without notice, threatening behaviour. Councils prosecute, the tenant can claim damages and an injunction, and the same conduct founds a rent repayment order.
The lawful route is the county court. The landlord serves the prescribed notice specifying the ground and the earliest date proceedings may start, then issues a possession claim. The tenant receives a defence form and should file it: arrears figures are often wrong, a disrepair counterclaim can reduce them, and deposit or licensing failures can defeat the claim. The judge makes an outright order, an order postponed on terms such as paying arrears by instalments, or dismisses the claim. If the order is not complied with, the landlord applies for a warrant and county court bailiffs, or High Court enforcement officers with permission, carry out the eviction. Only they may do it. The tenant can apply to suspend the warrant, and where the landlord's lender is repossessing, the Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc.) Act 2010 allows a short postponement to be sought.
Lodgers, licences and business tenancies
Not everyone who pays to occupy has a tenancy. A tenancy gives exclusive possession of a defined space for a term at a rent; a licence is bare permission to occupy, and the reality decides which it is, not the label. The classic licence is the lodger sharing living accommodation with a resident landlord, an excluded occupier under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, so reasonable notice matching the payment period is enough, no court order is needed and deposit protection does not bite. The resident landlord keeps access in return, and can use the Rent a Room scheme to receive a fixed amount tax free. Hotel guests, holiday lets and service occupancies tied to a job are licences too, but a self contained flat let to someone who can exclude the owner is a tenancy whatever the document says.
Business premises are a separate world. A lease of premises occupied for a business generally carries security of tenure under Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954: the tenancy continues after the contractual term and the tenant has a right to a new lease on terms the court settles, unless the landlord makes out a statutory ground of opposition such as persistent late payment, substantial breach, or a genuine intention to redevelop or occupy, with compensation payable on the no fault grounds. The parties may contract out, by the landlord serving a prescribed warning notice before the lease is entered into and the tenant signing a declaration, statutory where there is less than a fortnight to go. Contracting out is common and often the most valuable point in commercial heads of terms, because a tenant without security of tenure has no right to stay and no compensation. Terms in either kind of tenancy may also be challenged as unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 where the tenant is a consumer.
The tenancy as a record, not a filing cabinet
A tenancy agreement generated here is created against the property record, so the address, the landlord, the tenant and the rent are the ones the record already holds rather than retyped into a template. From there the record does the remembering. The deposit is registered against the tenancy with scheme, amount and date of protection, and the prescribed information is generated from those fields and served, so the two never drift apart. The How to Rent guide, the gas safety record, the energy performance certificate and the electrical report are served through the record and timestamped, so if service is ever disputed the date is already there.
The rent sits on the record with its review date, so a statutory increase notice is prompted rather than remembered, and the inventory and its photographs are held there at check in and check out, giving a deposit adjudicator one continuous file. A landlord compliance checklist runs across the record: licensing where the property needs it, alarms, certificates and expiry dates, deposit protection and right to rent checks, each shown as done, due or overdue. Tenants can leave reviews, of the landlord and of the home itself, so the next person taking the keys can see how repairs were handled before signing.
Sources: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; GOV.UK guidance on private renting, tenancy deposit protection and right to rent; legislation.gov.uk; the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber); HM Courts and Tribunals Service; the approved tenancy deposit schemes; local authority environmental health and licensing teams; Citizens Advice and Shelter. This page describes the law in England in outline and is not advice.
GOV.UK: private renting Tenancy deposit protection legislation.gov.uk
