Renters' Rights Act 2025: Start Date Still Unknown

The Renters Rights Act, passing into law, ends 30 months of uncertainty for buy-to-let landlords.

Ministers will reveal how the Act will roll out over the coming weeks, with some changes starting from Christmas.

The original bill - the Renters (Reform) Bill - was first put before Parliament by then Tory housing secretary Michael Gove.

Months of delays stalled the bill's progress as unhappy backbench MPs investing in property refused to back the proposed changes.

Then, in 2019, the bill disappeared in the run-up to the General Election in July of that year.

Private rented sector overhaul

Disgraced former housing secretary Angela Rayner resurrected the bill as the Renters' Rights Bill, which has finally made the statute book as the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

The new Act overhauls the private rented sector.

The core of the Act is the scrapping of fixed-term tenancies and Section 21 'no-reason' evictions. This seismic shift is intended to empower tenants to challenge poor conditions and unreasonable rent increases without fear of retaliatory eviction.

Other reforms include:

• Abolition of Section 21 evictions and fixed-term tenancies, which move to a simpler tenancy structure where all assured tenancies are periodic.
• Banning rent in advance in excess of one month.
• Introducing new grounds for possession, such as for selling the property, and amending existing ones
• Changes to the way an appeal against a rent increase works
• Introduce a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman and Private Rented Sector Database
• Give tenants strengthened rights to keep a pet, which the landlord cannot unreasonably refuse.
• Apply the Decent Homes Standard requiring properties to be in a reasonable state of repair, have modern facilities and services, be warm and energy-efficient, and meet the minimum safety standards of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
• Apply Awaab's Law to the sector, setting clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords in the private rented sector must take action to make homes safe where they contain serious hazards, including damp and mould.
• Make it illegal for landlords and agents to discriminate against prospective tenants in receipt of benefits or with children.
• End bidding wars among tenants by banning landlords and agents from asking for or accepting offers above the advertised rent. Landlords and agents will be required to publish an asking rent for their property, and it will be illegal to accept offers made above this rate.
• Strengthen rent repayment orders by extending them to superior landlords, doubling the maximum penalty and ensuring repeat offenders have to repay the maximum amount.

Empowering tenants

In the coming weeks, ministers will outline how the reforms will be rolled out, says a government housing spokesman. Several changes are expected to come into force from December 27.

Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said: "This government promised it would succeed where its predecessor had failed by overhauling the regulation of England's insecure and unjust private rented sector - our landmark Renters' Rights Act delivers on that commitment.

"By abolishing Section 21 'no-fault' evictions and empowering renters with greater security, rights, and protections, the Act will level decisively the playing field between landlord and tenant and transform the experience of private renting."