Renters’ Rights Act sees ‘hobby landlords’ leave the sector

The PRS is a business that should be not a hobby and undertaken by those who do not know, and importantly do not understand, the legislation and regulations that govern this business.
Personally I feel that these “hobby” landlords have been hugely responsible for the Renters Reform Bill and now Labour’s RRA. This is seeing good experienced PRS landlords leaving the sector not only the hobbyist landlords who haven’t a clue.
But tenant action groups and government will reap what they have sown. The detriment will be to those renting and looking to rent with less to rent, higher rents as demand outstrips supply, more stringent vetting by remaining landlords and tent cities.

Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 21/04/2026 – 10:01
“Hobby landlords” does not mean bad landlords, so the PRS will lose a number of properties where tenants have been perfectly happy, albeit there may have been minor infringements of ever increasing regulations.

I would class myself as a “hobby” landlord, with four properties. All of my tenants have been perfectly happy and most have been with me for years. But I am now throwing in the towel due to too much regulation, penal taxation, RRA, incoming changes to EPC and possibiity of high fines for minor infringements, etc., as well as thinking ahead to minimising IHT when I pop my clogs, which is much easier with cash than with properties.

Four s21 notices hit the letterboxes of my unfortunate tenants and I will be selling up.

Interesting term, hobby landlords. Conjures up images of people tinkering with tenancy agreements in their garden sheds. I cant imagine anyone doing this for fun.

Sounds like lender wishful thinking.
It’s easier for ‘hobby’ landlords to get out, it takes a lot longer for larger landlords to wind down.

a hobby means something you for fun/relax. Was there ever such a category of LL?

Has there ever been a category of tenant that even means this description is viable one?

so hobby landlord’s out – to be replaced with socially caring corporates coming in???

I’m thinking now renting out properties is very high risk. Tenants don’t have much to lose with landlords not able to get rent upfront and unable to take a bond that would cover anything more than the cost of having to replace a cheap carpet in a small bedroom. Also Tenants can now have pets which more often than not result in a property having to be stripped of all carpets and underlay then having to disinfect the floorboards if you’re lucky or as often happens they cause extensive damage with scratching and chewing fixtures resulting in needing new kitchen units and rotten floors due to being constantly soaked in urine.
I’m not going to be investing in anyone properties and I’m going to get rid of the worst Tenants by serving section 21 eviction notices this month. Then I’ll sell the properties as soon as they become vacant. Tenants have become very feckless over recent years. They know private landlords have no power and don’t care tuppence over causing damage. One recent example a tenant in a top floor flat had a washing machine that she had set up herself and she simply hung the waste pipe over the kitchen sink when using it. She’d left unattended whilst it spun and the pipe fell out of the kitchen sink causing a flood that went through all the flats below. She wasn’t bothered and said it was only occasionally the pipe fell out.
If a landlord had power to make her pay towards extensive caused through negligence I know she’d take much more care like she does with her car.

This is just going to make it harder to get your property back when it come to selling it as fewer and fewer tenants either want to or can move.
I used to have a house come free about once a year – I had 11 – I’ve sold a few already, but in every instance now I have to ask tenants to leave. It’s sad, and I don’t want to be doing it, but realistically I just don’t feel I have any other option than sell up over the next few years.

Hobby landlords? Really?

The law doesn’t distinguish between hobby landlords, accidental landlords, professional landlords or any other adjective.

We are landlords.

The amount of work that is required to be a landlord is considerable. I would expect landlords with just a few properties to decide that the returns are not worth the effort.

So, I would say, landlords with less than 4 x properties are likely to call it a day. This affects a significant number of tenants who will lose their homes.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 22/04/2026 – 16:16
The Act wasn’t thought through What a surprise!!