Renters’ Rights Act 2025: What are landlords actually changing now?

I’ve just had both of my houses EPC redone and luckily both have achieved a C.
Currently redecorating one of my properties to put back on the market and it’ll achieve 750 pound per month was 695.
I’m a really good responsive landlord repairs are done sometimes same day, best one I had was a call out to a leak in radiate about midnight on a Saturday night and by 12.50 in the morning it was finished and fixed by the plumber that I use
I live close to my properties so I’m taking a hold and wait and see approach
Obviously if cost increase rent will increase also.
I haven’t increased the other property for two year so that is due an increase soon.
But I’m in the north east of England I can imagine it being much tougher down London

Reply to the comment left by Adamufc1 at 25/12/2025 – 11:23
To achieve an EPC on the first one and ex council house I ensured every radiator had trv valves on except one I increased the loft insulation by a further 200 millimeter and that’s it the house already had cavity wall insulation and I had put a boiler in in 2017 the house that is currently empty being decorated I basically got three extra trv valves fitted and stuck an extra 200 millimeter loft insulation in the ceiling and that was enough the first house achieved a 75c and the second house which is much older just squeezed in at the lowest score of a C
I do also think it depends on the EPC assessor the one I use was really down to where and spoke to me like a normal person so that I understood everything I know this has gone off topic but definitely shop around

I am down to the last 3. I tried to start getting out before the RRA when one became vacant but the only offer we had was unacceptable so I re-let it on a 10 year lease with a break clause, then did a surrender and renewal for the other two, one has a 10 year and the other a 20 year lease. S.31 RRA 2025 means these are all outside the act, they are not Assured Tenancies. For so long as I own the houses there will be rent reviews as often as possible, hopefully annually but I suspect tenants will use the delaying tactics built in to the new rules so the reviews will end up being every 18 months or 2 years. The break clauses enable me to exit at a time of my choosing, but i accept there will be legal costs. My PRS investments were good for a while but I have stayed invested too long and I agree with Anthony James we will not see growth in housing prices for a long time. All I am hoping for is an active market at slightly above current prices. Meanwhile I am doing the same as others mention: read the Act and understand exactly what must be done to achieve compliance, then focus on keeping all paperwork absolutely up to date.

RRA and S24 hardly affects me.

* I have never taken deposits
* My rents are lower than the market rate as I now only have long term tenants left
* I have always allowed pets
* I allows tenants to decorate the property with permission
* I have a rigourous maintenance system whereby tenants can contact the tradesmen direct (I have arrangements with them).
* I have gotten rid of my rubbish tenants (had a few in 20+ years of letting)

Having said that, I have now sold 13 and will sell the other 5 when the tenants die or leave – hence S24 doesnt bother me either as I am now mortgage free..

Reply to the comment left by Adrian Alderton at 23/12/2025 – 11:43
Adrian,
I’ve also now started to purchased rent guarentee insurance. Any recommendations? As for a new letting process I use PaTMa software which covers all the compliance with action lists. It’s a great tool for both property management and finding new properties however we have now stopped purchasing new lets and will consider selling when tenants move on.

Reply to the comment left by AnthonyJames at 24/12/2025 – 00:48
AnthonyJames I believe shares will also be subject to IHT unless they are wrapped up in an ISA

EIS and SEIS shares are not subject to IHT provided they have seen held for 2 years .. having said that they are not listed on a stock exchange so are riskier (I have invested in several of these types of companies hoping they will be bought up by larger companies)

We have not really got concerns with the family homes with long-term tenants. I’m more concerned about the HMO we let on a room by room basis to professionals, in Bristol, as will need to see what happens in the student market. With a lot more pressure on renting to students and masses more Purpose Built units going up all the time maybe there will be more competition in the professional market. But on the other hand it will be good if the rowdy student HMOs alongside ours do become more respectable.

Reply to the comment left by Pete England – PaTMa Property Management at 28/12/2025 – 15:27
PeteEngland – I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying, or I may have misunderstood you. The shares I’m talking about are those in my relatively small unquoted limited company, not the sort of shares you can hold in an ISA. I will be gifting shares in the development company to my children, seeking to benefit from the seven-year rule for IHT, and gradually relinquishing control. I will train them up on how to continue operating it as a family company, if they wish, or how best to switch it to an investment company and extract capital when they want to, as a sort of top-up income to whatever else they are doing in their lives.

There’s little point now, after Reeves’ catastrophic attack on family businesses and farms, in holding shares and keeping majority control until you die: HMRC will just steal at least 20% of the gross value, less whatever piffling allowances are left (they are bound not to index-link the current £1 million, just as they’ve done with so many other allowances). Paying this tax is likely to mean the crippling of the company. Unless your beneficiaries have the 20% IHT lying around to pay the bill from private funds, or you’ve taken out a huge life insurance policy, the 20% is going to have to be extracted from the business in the form of dividends, which will themselves be subjected to income tax. As James Dyson recently said, 20% IHT on family businesses is really closer to 40% if the bill can only be paid by extracting money from the business.

We are already seeing damaging effects from this tax change – small businesses with older owners abandoning or reducing new investment and jobs, for example – because if a business owner’s priority now is to get the business out of their personal estate and put money aside to pay an IHT bill, there will seem little point in making significant new investments when up to 40% of any residual added value is going to be stolen by the Government.

Rachel Reeves and the Labour Party have now made the tradition of keeping hold of a company or a farm until you die into a terrible approach, one that is likely to kill off the very business you might have spent a lifetime building up. It’s now far better to give away the company early, or merge it into a family investment company or trust or such like. Hopefully your kids will value your experience and allow you to continue being one of the principal directors, assuming you still have your marbles.

Someone needs to write an up-to-date version of King Lear or Succession, to explore some of the scenarios that are inevitably going to arise from this abolition of Business Relief . . .

And here’s hoping for a change of government in 2029, to one that actually understands how small and medium family businesses work.

Reply to the comment left by AnthonyJames at 30/12/2025 – 12:45
It’s worth pointing out that minority shareholdings in unlisted private companies are often valued with significant discounts for Inheritance Tax. If shares are gifted so that all the recipients have minority shareholdings and the donor retains just under 50% of the shares then the value of the gifts for IHT if the donor dies within 7 years may be greatly reduced, and so might the value of the donor’s retained shareholding whenever they die.
I am sure there used to be a page in the HMRC Inheritance Tax manual about this but I can’t now find it. All I can find at the moment is this:
https://www.stirling-uk.com/business-valuations-for-minority-shareholders-in-smes/