Student lettings after the Renters’ Rights Act: five decisions

We brought landlords, agents, lawyers and industry specialists together to ask what replaces the traditional student letting model. The answer wasn’t as simple as we expected.

What a day we had.

When we at B-Informed organised The Future of Student Lettings conference in London on 21st October, we didn’t want a day where speakers simply stood at the front and told us what the Renters’ Rights Act says.

We wanted to find out what happens when you try to apply the new rules to a real student house.

The old certainty of a fixed-term student tenancy ending at an agreed date has gone. Student tenancies are now periodic, and that changes how landlords plan for one academic year’s household to leave and the next to move in.

What happens when one student wants to leave in February? What if four of six want to stay for another year? What if they find a replacement? What if you’ve already promised the house to next year’s group?

And, perhaps most importantly, do you organise your business around preserving Ground 4A, or deliberately choose a different model?

Ground 4A is the new mandatory possession ground for qualifying student HMOs, allowing landlords who meet its conditions to recover possession so the property can be let to another group of students for the next academic year.

Those questions produced some lively discussion, with landlords, agents and speakers challenging each option and asking: what would actually work for me?

Ground 4A is a commercial decision

Robin Stewart, Partner at Anthony Gold Solicitors, opened the main legal discussion by looking at what happens when a student leaves early.

That quickly led us into joint tenancies, replacement students, guarantors, new agreements and whether decisions made during the tenancy could affect the landlord’s ability to recover possession later.

The question in the room gradually changed.

It began as:

“Can I use Ground 4A?”

It became:

“Do I want to organise my student lettings so that I preserve Ground 4A, and what are the commercial consequences if I do, or don’t?”

That distinction matters.

One landlord may decide that preserving the possibility of using Ground 4A is important. Another may decide that securing the next group earlier is commercially more important, even if the way the tenancy is arranged means Ground 4A won’t be available.

There isn’t one answer for every landlord or every student market. But it needs to be a conscious decision.

What happens when the household changes?

This was probably the issue we kept coming back to throughout the day.

Student households don’t remain conveniently static. One student may leave. Others may want to stay. A replacement may be found. The whole group may want another year. Meanwhile, the landlord may already be planning for the next academic intake.

With a joint periodic tenancy, one tenant’s notice can have consequences for the tenancy of the whole household, which makes the way a landlord responds particularly important.

We considered whether landlords should continue letting to the whole student household on one joint tenancy, move towards letting individual rooms separately, or consider other models where the traditional approach no longer works as it did before.

None produced a magic solution.

Individual room agreements may make it easier to deal with one student’s departure without disturbing everybody else’s arrangements, but they bring other questions with them: Council Tax, deposits, guarantors, mortgage conditions, insurance, licensing and planning.

Before changing the household, think about both the tenancy you have today and the tenancy you want tomorrow.

Have a Plan B before you need one.

Evidence is your best protection

Nick Lyons, CEO of No Letting Go, made another point that deserves more attention than it sometimes gets.

Evidence shouldn’t begin with an inventory and end with a check-out report.

With the Renters’ Rights Act, property condition requirements and increasing regulatory scrutiny, landlords and agents need a continuing record of the property and what has happened during the tenancy.

That means inspections, photographs, repair records, correspondence and evidence that reported problems were dealt with.

Evidence is your best protection.

That becomes particularly relevant when a student leaves and somebody else joins. What was the condition of the property at that point? What had been reported? What had been repaired? Who was responsible for what?

Months later, memory isn’t evidence.

Months later, memory isn’t evidence.

What did the student think?

We also wanted the voice of a student in the room. Maisie Russon joined the discussion to give us that perspective.

Some of her messages were remarkably straightforward.

Show students clearly what they’re renting. Use decent, accurate photographs. Give them a simple way to report problems. Tell them who to contact. And when something is reported, communicate.

It tied neatly into the discussion about evidence. If a student can report a problem easily, the landlord acknowledges it, action is recorded and the repair is documented, both sides are in a much better position.

No guarantor and no large rent payment upfront. Now what?

Another problem we examined was particularly relevant to international students, who may not have a UK-based guarantor acceptable to the landlord or agent.

Traditionally, some landlords have dealt with that by requiring six or twelve months’ rent in advance.

Under the new rules, landlords cannot require rent to be paid that far in advance. Once the tenancy agreement has been signed, the landlord can require the first month’s rent before the tenancy starts but cannot simply demand six or twelve months upfront as an alternative to a guarantor.

So, another solution may be needed.

We looked at alternatives, including professional guarantor services.

Having a guarantor isn’t the same as having a good guarantor.

Whoever you rely upon needs to be properly referenced, and the guarantee itself needs to be understood. What does it cover? How long does it last? What happens if one student leaves, another joins or the tenancy arrangements change?

Protecting the money

Gurman Bains of Reposit brought the financial side into the discussion: damage, arrears, disputes, deposits and alternatives.

Again, household changes complicate matters.

If somebody leaves and another student joins, landlords and agents need to think about continuing liability, the deposit or deposit alternative and, crucially, what evidence shows the condition of the property when the change occurred.

The legal agreement, the money and the evidence can’t sensibly be considered in isolation.

Five decisions before you let for 2027

By the end of the day, we thought the discussion could be reduced to five decisions every student landlord or agent should make before agreeing their next student tenancies:

• Will I preserve Ground 4A, and does my normal signing timetable allow it?
• Will I use a joint tenancy or individual room agreements, and what are the Council Tax and other consequences?
• What will I do when one student wants to leave?
• What is my Plan B if a room becomes empty or only part of the group wants to stay?
• Does my chosen model work commercially as well as legally, including mortgage, insurance, licensing and planning?

There is no universal replacement for the old student letting model.

Simply changing the tenancy agreement isn’t enough.

Landlords and agents need to decide how they want their student lettings to work, understand the consequences of that decision and make sure the legal documents, management procedures and commercial model fit together.

And despite all the legislative change, some of the best advice we heard wasn’t new at all:

Reference properly. Present the property accurately. Keep good records. Make it easy to report problems. And communicate, communicate, communicate.

The conference discussions were intended to explore the practical implications of the Renters’ Rights Act and different student letting models. They should not be treated as legal advice, and landlords and agents should take appropriate professional advice before changing their tenancy or letting arrangements.

About the authors

Peter Littlewood and Lisa Williamson are directors of B-Informed, which provides practical training for landlords, letting agents and property professionals. B-Informed organised The Future of Student Lettings conference in London on 21st October 2026.