Government claims Renters’ Rights Act benefits landlords

I am the same – selling up gradually. I only own 3 properties and have enjoyed helping tenants. However, RRA, EPC reforms, Making Tax Digital all make it no longer worth it.

We used to able to have a minimum 12 month let. Now, with RRA the minimum is only 3 months, then you have the extra cost from agents for compliance and affordability checks, new contract, inventories and regular site visits.

All governments have gradually made it worse for small landlords and they obviously don’t like us.

Benefit to Landlords? – “Do me a favour!”, as one Eastenders star would say.

Reply to the comment left by John Hole at 03/07/2026 – 12:21
I don’t blame you. Tony Vaughan’s question is a sensible question and the government’s response is ridiculous.

If you’re a large, incorporated landlord with 1-100 properties and the ability to write all your finance costs off against rents and you get a problem tenant that doesn’t have as big an impact upon you as a small landlord; in addition to your finance costs you can write the additional costs of your one bad tenant off against your other 9-99 tenants.

But the majority of landlords are small portfolio landlords. For all of those landlords their buy-to-let investment is a very significant proportion of their net worth, in some cases most of their pension income, and sometimes their only income. They can’t afford to have the government take most of their income or most of their net worth away. In some cases where the landlord has other income it’s not going to be worth while renting their property out at all but in many more cases the effects of the Labour Renters Rights Act mean that there are many more tenants they can no longer consider housing. Overall, the Labour Renters Rights Act does not benefit landlords; and the problem is, it doesn’t benefit tenants either because it will reduce tenant choice, reduce competition, increase costs and drive rents up.

I don’t know many landlords asking for what’s in the Labour Renters Rights Act. I think most landlords would prefer lower rent, lower risk, not being attacked constantly, and knowing that they can get their properties back. Saying that the Labour Renters Rights Act benefits landlords is just nonsense.

Reply to the comment left by CambridgeBrummie at 03/07/2026 – 13:58
What the government’s assessment said, apparently, was that landlords would benefit by £9/year per property annually, largely from reduced letting agent fees due to fewer household moves and shorter void periods, and also that tenants will benefit by £28 per household per year.

I use an agent: Letting agent fees aren’t going down and they aren’t going to go down. They are going to go up because of the increased costs of screening tenants and reviewing tenant fees annually as a consequence of the new Labour Renters Rights Act provisions in respect of discrimination against benefits tenants.

In my view, void periods aren’t going to go down either because of the problems associated with the Labour Renters Rights Act restrictions on how properties are advertised, the requirement not to discriminate, the greater risk associated with problem tenants now that section 21 has gone, and the increased work required in screening tenants as a consequence of the act.

Tenant households aren’t going to benefit by £28 per year; the Labour Renters Rights Act is going to drive rents up.

The labour government’s ‘business-case’ that led it to claim that landlords will benefit (by £9 year?….whoopee) is about as accurate as the government’s business case was for HS2.

Good to see the Government taking notice of what the NRLA have to say when it surveyed it’s membership.

NRLA you have no influence on governments, so it’s time you started acting for your members, while you still have some.

Reply to the comment left by Lordship at 03/07/2026 – 16:52
Matthew Pennycook is reported as saying that the Labour Renters Rights Act will provide “…tangible benefits for responsible landlords.”

Does any landlord on here have any current experience of using the courts system since the Renters Rights Act came into force? Does anybody know whether it’s got tangibly better yet?

And has any other landlord experienced any other tangible benefit from the Renters Rights Act?

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 03/07/2026 – 17:11
Yes the tangible benefit for me (together with the proposed tax changes by Burnham) has been to make it a much easier decision to sell. In business you have to adapt or die. For a small landlord like me the choice is now clear. It’s sad but I need to strip the emotion out of it. After all this hard work I’m not going to hand Labour a huge proportion of my net worth that was meant to be my pension just so they can **** it down the drain.

I personally am seeing good opportunities in the market to buy as capital values have fallen on investment properties in my area. So I am buying on my home turf in the South for the first time since 2014. 2014 was when I started purchasing up north for investment yield.

Why doesn’t Property118 question the nonsense that is published in order to support the Government an ethical and dishonest policies that the new law punished unjustified Small Landlords? Such as the new pet law that allows a tenant to have a German shepherd in his one bedroom flat and the tenant has no to worry about the physical damaged and the stench that leave the dog behind for 2 months the unrentable flat or just respect the principle of a pet free accommodation
Or the fact that a landlord cannot make a two months or longer definite contract while the tenant is able to vacate in two months! which because of the preparation, repair, repaint, etc will take another two months to rent it. The landlord will be only able to do two rentals in a year with a potential of 4 months rental and having to pay for 8 months Council Tax, advertising, etc.
Surely even the mos deranged mind can see that these and others regulations means that the landlord have only two options: pass the cost to the next tenant in rental increase or go bankrupt!!

Pennycrook
Haven’t a clue what landlords do and he don’t want to know .it’s better for him to be in ignorance