Rent tribunal cases surge following Renters’ Rights Act

It would be useful to know how many of the tribunal decisions were in favour of the tenant and how many in favour of the landlord.
An increase in tribunal cases was an obvious result of the RRA but if tribunal decisions go in favour of the landlords in most cases then tenants may think twice about going to tribunal.
If most decisions go in favour of the tenant then landlords will have to up their game and produce good evidence for rent increases.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Lever – Chartered Accountant helping clients get the best returns from their properties at 02/09/2026 – 10:04
Why should they think about going to the tribunal. For £47 they at least get to delay any increase don’t they? This is state sponsored blackmail and its disgusting. Tribunal times will increase the more tenants do this and the evidence is that this is what they are doing. Some charities are indeed advising all tenants to do this.

Dont forget the NEXT s13 rent increase can only be done after 12 months of the previous increase. The form requires you to put in the date of the last increase not the date when the last increase was requested. At very best we can look forward to rent increases every 18 months not each year and that’s if the Tribunal takes 6 months to decide and of course the tenant doesn’t put in a case for hardship in which case yhe increase can be further delayed.

Also the notice to the tenant invites them to request that the landlord pays the £47!

No wonder dear Angela is not bothering with rent controls. Doesn’t need to.

Im very lucky to have respectful working tenants in my hmo (my only property). Ive explained to them all how they could shaft me if they wanted to and I’ve done two rent reviews since the changes. I explained to both that I will be putting in the max that I think i might get, inviting them to come back to me asking for less, saying they are not to be offended but this is my new policy. I have an extremely good relationship with my guys one of whom teased me saying he wanted to have a red panda as a pet. I then received loads of pics of red pandas! I will be oh so extremely careful i get the same respectful relationship with any new tenants. Anyone who looks like a chancer will NOT be admitted. Full stop! Changes like these will not help any marginal tenants. When will the government finally realise this.

Reply to the comment left by Fergus Wilson at 02/09/2026 – 10:15
Exactly, it just won’t work like that when one party has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds and the the other is paying a tiny fraction of this and can give two months notice at any time to just walk away. These politicians and renters’ rights groups simply cannot grasp the concept that there is an opportunity cost to being a landlord and this is increasing rapidly. I look at the increasing amount I have invested in an ISA wrapper giving tax free dividends and CGT free capital growth that was once invested in bricks and mortar giving people homes to rent. It was well worth it to me to pay the CGT and get out despite having high yielding and successful student HMOs.

What all the politicians and tenants’ groups don’t grasp is that there is a ‘next move’ for a landlord who had tried and failed to get the rent that they need to make renting out the property worthwhile. They even acknowledge that the landlord may have justifiable reasons for asking for a higher rent.

The landlord will be perfectly entitled to decide to sell up and give notice to the tenant accordingly.

In business you must be competitive!

Tribunal decisions are published and can be accessed on https://www.gov.uk/residential-property-tribunal-decisions

You can register to receive a weekly or even daily email containing details of new decisions.

Reading a few of the judgments will be much more useful in understanding how decisions are arrived at than any number of journalistic attempts to give generalised advice.

Tenants are actively INCENTIVISED to make tribunal claims. They’d almost be mad not to!

The claim process means that they win regardless of the tribunals decision, because the delay saves them money! At least with previous tribunals a decision upholding the new rent meant tenants had to back pay the rent increase, so if the increase was reasonable they wouldn’t gain by going to the tribunal. Now they do gain just be making the appeal, it’s ludicrous!

Correct me here please. Where does it clearly state in the RRA (see para 3 of the article) that a proposed rental increase must not exceed that of the open market?(perhaps it does, but it therefore moves the goal posts a long way)
Many landlords on this forum have stated they’ll look to gradually claw back some of their additional costs as a result of the RRA or Selective Licensing, whilst others have said that if their property is in a condition and has facilities well in excess of similar properties nearby, perhaps following large capital expenditure, they will justifiably seek a higher rent.
It would also mean you have to research many factors within the immediate locality before arriving at a proposed figure.

“Where does it clearly state in the RRA (see para 3 of the article) that your proposed rental increase must not exceed that of the open market?”
I don’t think it does. Determining the market rent is the job of the tribunal, not an exact science but a view based on evidence supplied by the parties, local knowledge and any aspects of the particular property that justify a higher or lower rent than other similar properties in the area. If you read the decisions you will find that “many factors within the locality” are taken into account.
Individual landlord’s costs do not affect market rent, just the viability and profitability of that portfolio – mortgage interest rates and S24 only affect those who have mortgages and rents did not decrease when interest rates fell.
Additional costs that might be expected to affect market rents are those which impact all landlords or those in a particular area e.g. licensing, tax rate increases, database and registration fees and it will be interesting to see how quickly such changes feed through into rent assessments.

I do believe most landlords will have done their research and know the market value of their property, so doubt many should not succeed in their rent increase,which I believe would be backdated, so the tenant may then fall into arrears, surely leading to a reason to evict putting the tenant in a precarious position?

A rent tribunal will not consider mortgage rates and how the landlord balances the books. That is a wider issue.

The tribunal will wear a pair of blinkers and focus on the raw rent and how that compares with others in the locality.

That is the “market rent”.