Renters’ Rights Act 2025: What are landlords actually changing now?
With the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 approaching, I’m interested in what landlords are actually changing in practice, rather than what the headlines suggest we should be doing. Much of the commentary focuses on the end of Section 21, but I’m not convinced that’s the most significant shift for landlords who already run their portfolios professionally.
For me, the bigger change is how the Act quietly alters assumptions around timing, planning, and margin for error. Periodic tenancies becoming the default, more scrutiny around rent increases, and stronger enforcement all point toward a system that rewards preparation and documentation rather than flexibility and informality. None of this makes renting unviable, but it does make poor assumptions more expensive.
I’m seeing a few different approaches emerging.
- Some landlords appear to be holding rents steady to reduce challenge risk.
- Others are reassessing whether certain properties still stack up once longer possession timelines and compliance friction are factored in.
- A smaller group seems to be taking a “wait and see” stance, assuming the practical impact will be less severe than predicted.
Personally, I don’t see the Renters’ Rights Act as the end of landlord profitability, but I do think it marks the end of relying on assumptions that worked five or ten years ago. Properties that already had thin margins or relied heavily on flexibility may feel pressure first, while well-located, well-managed stock is likely to remain resilient.
I’d be genuinely interested to hear from others:
- Have you already changed anything in response to the Renters’ Rights Act 2025?
- Are you adjusting your numbers, rents, or exit strategies?
- Or are you waiting for clarity before making any moves?
- Real-world experiences and differing views would be useful — particularly from landlords with long-term tenants or mixed portfolios.#
Many thanks
Koye
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Member Since March 2023 - Comments: 1506
4:53 PM, 30th December 2025, About 3 months ago
Anthony, I have already done that with my computer leasing LTD company. I have transferred all the shares to my son but I remain as sole director. My property LTD company in which I am a director and shareholder has ‘placed’ me in control of the computer company so the property company can charge the computer company a management charge, hence although I will not draw any money from the computer comany I can still draw a dividend from the property company.
This was never set up in that way but as advised by my accountant is a perfectly legal way of moving money from one company to another and reducing tax paid by both the company and myself.
It was just pure luck that my company structures could accomodate this.
The issue I have now is the partnership with the wife where we hold 2 properties. We are hoping to sell when the tenants move out
Member Since July 2013 - Comments: 463
1:04 PM, 31st December 2025, About 3 months ago
Reply to the comment left by GlanACC at 30/12/2025 – 16:53
Thanks GlanACC and Michael Crofts for your comments.
I also can’t find formal confirmation online, but I suspect HMRC will continue to value minority shareholdings in private companies at a discount compared to majority holdings, to reflect their lack of control and reduced marketability. How that reduced valuation is calculated or how to contest it, I’ve no idea.
I have to apologise about some details in my last post. In my ignorance I thought the recent increase (23 Dec 2025) in allowances for Business Property Relief from April 2026 to £2.5 million per spouse only applied to agricultural assets. It actually applies to other types of businesses too. This sweetens the pill.
Of course the business still has to be a *trading* one, not an investment one, There’s no BPR relief for small buy-and-hold landlords who have incorporated.
Another error is that there is the option to pay IHT liability in 10 equal, interest-free annual instalments has been extended to all property eligible for BPR. This will help with cash flow after a death, as it reduces the cliff-edge nature of IHT charges.
I appreciate there are other ways to remove a founder’s company from his or her estate – gifts of shares to a spouse, children, or a trust – and to retain some control separate from owning shares with capital value: set up different share classes, for example, or use linked companies as GlanACC has done.