Government Rental Reform Update – November 2025

The Renters’ Rights Act delivers our manifesto commitment to transform the experience of private renting, including by ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions. The Act will improve the current system for both the 11 million private renters and 2.3 million landlords in England. It will give renters much greater security and stability so they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities, and avoid the risk of homelessness.

The Act completed its passage in Parliament on Wednesday 22 October 2025 and received Royal Assent on Monday 27 October 2025. As of November 2025, a number of the measures in the Act have not come into force. The government will publish a separate timeline outlining plans for implementation.

Background

Reform of the sector is long overdue, and we will act where previous governments have failed. While the majority of landlords provide a good service, the private rented sector currently provides the least affordable, poorest quality and most insecure housing of all tenures.

Millions of people in England live day in, day out with the knowledge that they and their families could be uprooted from their home with little notice and minimal justification, and a significant minority of them are forced to live in substandard properties for fear that a complaint would lead to an instant retaliatory eviction.

A functioning private rented sector can provide a secure stepping stone for aspiring homeowners and flexibility for those who want it. But the insecurity embedded in the current tenancy system fails both those tenants looking for a stable home for their families and those landlords who are undercut by the rogues and chancers. It is a drain on aspiration and reform is central to our opportunity mission so all have the chance to achieve their potential.

Overview of Act measures

The Renters’ Rights Act will:

• Abolish section 21 evictions and move to a simpler tenancy structure where all assured tenancies are periodic – providing more security for tenants and empowering them to challenge poor practice and unfair rent increases without fear of eviction. We will implement this new system in one stage, giving all tenants security immediately.
• Ensure possession grounds are fair to both parties, giving tenants more security, while ensuring landlords can recover their property when reasonable. The Act introduces new safeguards for tenants, giving them more time to find a home if landlords evict to move in or sell, and ensuring unscrupulous landlords cannot misuse grounds.
• Provide stronger protections against backdoor eviction by ensuring tenants are able to appeal excessive above-market rents which are purely designed to force them out. As now, landlords will still be able to increase rents to market price for their properties and an independent tribunal will make a judgement on this, if needed.
• Introduce a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman that will provide quick, fair, impartial and binding resolution for tenants’ complaints about their landlord. This will bring tenant-landlord complaint resolution in line with established redress practices for tenants in social housing and consumers of property agent services
• Create a Private Rented Sector Database to help landlords understand their legal obligations and demonstrate compliance (giving good landlords confidence in their position), alongside providing better information to tenants to make informed decisions when entering into a tenancy agreement. It will also support local councils – helping them target enforcement activity where it is needed most. Landlords will need to be registered on the database in order to use certain possession grounds.
• Give tenants strengthened rights to request a pet in the property, which the landlord must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse.
• Apply the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector to give renters safer, better value homes and remove the blight of poor-quality homes in local communities.
• 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.
• Make it illegal for landlords and agents to discriminate against prospective tenants in receipt of benefits or with children – helping to ensure everyone is treated fairly when looking for a place to live.
• End the practice of rental bidding by prohibiting 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 local authority enforcement by expanding civil penalties, introducing a package of investigatory powers and bringing in a new requirement for local authorities to report on enforcement activity.
• Strengthen rent repayment orders by extending them to superior landlords, doubling the maximum penalty and ensuring repeat offenders have to repay the maximum amount.

Tenancy reform

The Renters’ Rights Act will introduce a transformative new tenancy system, ending the threat of arbitrary section 21 evictions, which uproot renters from their homes with little notice and minimal justification. The new tenancy system will provide tenants with greater security and stability and empower them to challenge bad practice without fear of retaliatory eviction. Landlords will also benefit, with more straightforward regulation, and clearer and expanded possession grounds.

Periodic tenancies

The Renters’ Rights Act will remove fixed-term assured tenancies. Fixed-term tenancies mean renters are obliged to pay rent regardless of whether a property is up-to-standard, and they reduce flexibility to move in response to changing circumstances, for example after relationship breakdown, to take up a new job or when buying a first home.

Instead, all tenancies will be periodic, with tenants able to stay in their home until they decide to end the tenancy by giving two months’ notice. This will end the injustice of tenants being trapped paying rent for substandard properties and offer more flexibility to both parties to respond to changing circumstances, for example, after a relationship breakdown, to take up a new job or when buying a first home.

All leases with a fixed term of more than 21 years will be removed from the assured tenancy system. This will mean that long leasehold agreements and Shared Ownership leases will not be part of the assured tenancy system in future.

Grounds for possession

We value the contribution made by responsible landlords who provide quality homes to their tenants and believe landlords must enjoy robust grounds for possession where there is good reason to take their property back. To support this, the Act clarifies and expands grounds for possession, while ensuring tenants are protected from arbitrary eviction and given enough time to find a new home.

Landlords must, as in the current system, go to court if a tenant does not leave. They will need to provide evidence that the ground is met. For mandatory grounds, the court must award possession if the ground is proven. For discretionary grounds, the court can consider if eviction is reasonable, even when the ground is met.

Where a tenant is at fault, landlords can give notice using the relevant grounds at any point in the tenancy. This includes where a tenant commits antisocial behaviour, is damaging the property, or falls into significant arrears.

We will introduce new protections for tenants who temporarily fall into rent arrears, supporting both parties by preventing tenancies which are otherwise viable from ending. We will increase the mandatory threshold for eviction from 2 to 3 months’ arrears and increase the notice period from 2 weeks to 4. This will allow tenants more time to repay arrears and remain in their homes, while ensuring landlords do not face unsustainable costs. Landlords can also continue to use the discretionary rent arrears grounds, for example if rent is repeatedly late.

As well as tenants, landlords’ own circumstances can sometimes change, and the Act includes strengthened rights to reclaim properties when it’s necessary, for example to sell or move in. Tenants will benefit from a 12-month protected period at the beginning of a tenancy, during which landlords cannot evict them to move in or sell the property. Landlords will need to provide 4 months’ notice when using these grounds, giving tenants more time to find a new home, and reducing the risk of homelessness.

To prevent landlords from abusing the moving in and selling grounds, landlords will not be able to market or re-let their property for 12 months after using the moving or selling grounds. There is an exception to this restriction for shared owners when they use the selling ground (Ground 1A) where they can demonstrate they have made a genuine attempt to sell their property.

In some sectors, it is necessary to move tenants on where accommodation is intended for a particular purpose, for example where the current tenant may no longer need the accommodation or is no longer eligible to occupy it. We will therefore introduce a limited number of possession grounds to ensure there is an adequate supply of properties in vital sectors such as temporary and supported accommodation, and for critical housing schemes such as ‘stepping stone’ accommodation.

We will also expand ‘ground 6’ for redevelopment to relevant social landlords to support redevelopment of properties where required, and introduce a new possession ground for relevant social landlords where a tenant has been provided with alternative accommodation while redevelopment affecting the tenant’s original home is carried out. Where the landlord seeks possession under these grounds, they will usually need to provide alternative accommodation that meets specific requirements.

To support compliance with requirements introduced elsewhere by the Act, we will prevent landlords gaining possession if they have not properly protected a tenant’s deposit or registered their property on the private rented sector database. We will ensure landlords are always able to rectify non-compliance, so they are not prevented from regaining possession indefinitely. These restrictions will not apply to antisocial behaviour grounds.

Rent increases

In line with the government’s manifesto, we will empower private rented sector tenants to challenge unreasonable rent increases. This will prevent unscrupulous landlords using rent increases as a backdoor means of eviction, while ensuring rents can be increased to reflect market rates.

In future, all rent increases in the private rented sector will be made using the same process. Landlords will be able to increase rents once per year to the market rate – the price that would be achieved if the property was newly advertised to let. To do this, they will need to serve a simple ‘section 13’ notice, setting out the new rent and giving at least 2 months’ notice of it taking effect.

If a tenant believes the proposed rent increase exceeds market rate, they can then challenge this at the First-tier Tribunal, who will determine what the market rent should be.

We will reform how the Tribunal works to ensure tenants feel confident in challenging poor practice and enforcing their rights. Currently, tenants face the risk that the Tribunal may increase rent beyond what the landlord initially proposed – we will end this, so tenants never pay more than what the landlord asked for. We will also end the practice of backdating rent increases – with the new rent instead applying from the date of the Tribunal determination – to ensure tenants are not unexpectedly thrust into debt. And, in cases of undue hardship, we will give the Tribunal the power to defer rent increases by up to a further 2 months.

To ensure tenants always have a right of appeal, and prevent backdoor evictions, rent increases by any other means – such as rent review clauses – will not be permitted. This will also ensure all parties are clearer on their rights and responsibilities.

Implementation

To end the scourge of section 21 evictions as quickly as possible, we will introduce the new tenancy for the private rented sector in one stage. On this date the new tenancy system will apply to all private tenancies – existing tenancies will convert to the new system, and any new tenancies signed on or after this date will also be governed by the new rules. Existing fixed terms will be converted to periodic tenancies, and landlords will no longer be able to serve new section 21 or old-style section 8 notices to evict their tenants. This single date will prevent a confusing 2-tier system, and give all tenants security immediately.

We will work closely with all parts of the sector to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, and will provide sufficient notice ahead of implementation. The Act makes specific provision to ensure a smooth transition and avoid unnecessary ‘cliff edges’, for example maintaining the validity of rent increases and notices served prior to implementation.

All tenancies will need to have a written tenancy agreement in future, that includes specific information. Landlords won’t need to change or re-issue existing written tenancy agreements. Instead, they will need to provide tenants with a copy of a government-produced information sheet, explaining how the reforms may have affected the tenancy.

All new tenancy agreements created after the new system comes into force will need to contain specific information, that will be set out by the government in secondary legislation. If an existing tenancy doesn’t have a written tenancy agreement – because it is based on a verbal agreement – landlords will need to provide a written document that covers the required information.

We remain committed to abolition of section 21 in the social rented sector too. While our intention is to do this as quickly as possible, we consider it necessary to update our Direction to the Regulator of Social Housing so that they can update their Tenancy Standard. This will ensure it is clear what registered providers must do under the new system. As this requires a statutory consultation process, we will apply the new system to social tenancies (where the landlord is a private registered provider of social housing) at a later date.

Assured shorthold tenancies are typically only used in the social sector where there was an expectation that a tenancy would be for the short-term. As such, the majority of social tenants already enjoy secure assured tenancies, which have greater security and do not allow the use of section 21.