The continuing Renters’ Rights Act nightmare – what happens if the first month’s rent isn’t paid?

Is it not possible to say in the tenancy agreement that: “the tenancy will only commence and be effective in law when all the following specified conditions are met:
1) the agreement document is signed by all parties;
2) the deposit has been received by the landlord from the primary tenant;
3) the first months rent has been received by the landlord from the primary tenant;
4) the landlord provides each specified tenant with a set of keys to the property.
And thus failure by the landlord or primary tenant to comply with any of these conditions specified will mean the tenancy has not been granted and the tenancy has not begun.”
Would this work?

Peter G

No. If there was a simple drafting solution the lawyers would already have found it.The legislation as drafted means if the tenancy doc has been signed if the tenant then refuses to pay the landlord is still obliged to hand over the keys. Writing some clauses of your own which say something different to the legislation doesn’t override what the legislation says.

The issue the legislation is trying to address is rogue LLs who take payment then never handover keys. Instead under the legislation LLs now worry about rogue tenants who sign but don’t pay up and still get keys. In the new scenario the LL has recourse to rent gtee insurance and the law to recover rent arrears and if need be in due course evict the tenant. It’s the same issue LLs already have with tenants who pay 1st month then nothing

I’m sure if I ever had a tenant sign and not pay before move in day I would be very reluctant to handover keys knowing how long it takes to evict someone just like I feel sorry for anyone whose tenant moves in then refuses to pay after month1.

Hopefully the lawyers and nrla and govt can find a workable solution meanwhile the only thing to do is to select tenants as carefully as possible to try to find those who will pay and use rgi legal and malicious damage cover..

Reply to the comment left by DavidM at 09/01/2026 – 22:47
It would be wrong to assume that legal training = legal competence. Don’t trust too much in solicitors, as my experience has been they frequently contradict each other, and often miss things that “uneducated” people see clearly.

Reply to the comment left by Peter G at 09/01/2026 – 23:17
Peter G

Well yes i don’t mind if it is lawyers or someone else who finds a workaround. Some sort of mechanism for simultaneously getting the payment and signing (cash in one hand pen in other) would work or signing in separate copies which a lawyer or other professional or a letting agent only brings together into a signed single document when funds have been transferred, like how a house purchase contract exchange is done.

Tbh the thought of tenants getting keys without paying even tho non paying tenants is something we already face as a problem. In reality what it means is for those who don’t want to pay they stump up 1 month less rent and LLs find out 1 month sooner so (with the extra month of rent arrears before they can be evicted) they get evicted at the same point. RGI has to cover month 1 as well. It just feels unfair as tenants get ‘something for nothing’ (probably 6 months rent free) and LLs get even longer being stressed.

This will hopefully be a tiny fraction of all tenants whom most of us will avoid through good referencing etc just like it is a tiny fraction of landlords who take payment then don’t hand over keys.

As you imply most LLs and tenants don’t want to get lawyers involved in anything if they can – they are slow and expensive

Best

Reply to the comment left by DavidM at 09/01/2026 – 22:47
I agree.

This new law creates a problem regarding the first month’s rent. However, if you have a rogue tenant. as in Michael’s example, you will be one month’s rent worse off when the RRA comes into force than you would have been under current legislation. So let’s keep things in perspective.

What may well happen is that some landlords are unaware of the rules and demand or accept the rent before signing the tenancy. That puts them in breach and at the mercy of a rogue tenant later. It will also scupper a s8 claim for rent arrears.

I also foresee that tenants innocently send the money in advance. Under the RRA, the landlord must repay it before signing, complete the tenancy and then ask the tenant to re-send the rent.

The order of events needs to be:
1. [Optional] tenant pays one week’s holding deposit;
2. Lease is agreed. Tenant pays tenancy deposit (less holding deposit);
3. Lease is entered into; and
4. Tenant pays first month’s rent.

A further problem is that a landlord cannot require more than a month’s rent to be paid in advance. So if rent is due on the first of the month and the tenancy is entered into on 31st January, the landlord cannot require one month and one day’s rent to be paid.

One possibility, and this is not the best way to start a landlord-tenant relationship may be to include a provision to the following effect in the tenancy:

“I, NAME OF TENANT, warrant that I have the first month’s rent available to pay to the landlord. I intend to pay and undertake to pay it immediately after this tenancy is entered into. I acknowledge that the Landlord is relying upon this warranty and representation and would not grant the tenancy otherwise. I accept that if I fail to pay the first month’s rent in accordance with this clause, the landlord will be exposed to a risk of financial loss.”

If the tenant signs the tenancy, takes the keys and in effect says “Yah boo, sucks to you, I’m not paying” this sets up a possible criminal offence under s2 Fraud Act 2006.

This has of course not been tested and the court may not like it but if a tenant is brazen, the risk of a criminal record may concentrate the mind, as they say.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 13/01/2026 – 12:33
Ian

Even the extra 1st month rent unpaid will be covered by RGI if you have it. Other cost is extra stress as wait three months not two before can take action over rent arrears

Your draft is exactly the sort of unenforceable clause that is contrary to what is drafted in RRA and could lead to a fine from the Council.

The simple practical solution is agreeing a. mechanism for simultaneously contract signing and payment of the 1st month rent. And if neither does both then it all gets cancelled. Perhaps done via an intermediary or electronically.

So avoiding a game of chicken where either rogue LL tries to grab cash without signing tenancy or rogue tenant tries to get both signatures without having handed over the cash. Eg.Both sign a copy of contract with one hand and transfer cash with other. If in that situation a tenant is trying to get signatures on paper without handing over the cash it’ll be obvious and LL just walks away relieved.

DavidM, I acknowledge that creating an offence under the Fraud Act may not work but what is the “unenforceable clause”? I am proposing a representation and warranty, not a contractual provision that I would sue upon.
You say: “The simple practical solution is agreeing a. mechanism for simultaneously contract signing and payment of the 1st month rent. And if neither does both then it all gets cancelled. Perhaps done via an intermediary or electronically.”
Your proposal, I submit, does breach the RRA. The tenancy must be entered into before the first rent is paid. Doing it “simultaneously” breaches the Act, with or without “an intermediary”. That is neither simple nor sensible.

Ian Nasbeth

You may well be right on the simultaneously point tho the near impossible practicalities of distinguishing a tiny fraction before and simultaneously might make my solution workable-ish. The point is you and tenant have agreed an near simultaneous exchange of signing for cash in order to proceed. Only the most legalistic and brazen tenant will sit opposite you and try to demand signatures first due to a wording in the Act. Any who try will get short shrift from me. I will walk away. And since I won’t actually have signed nor received cash I won’t have committed any offence.

What you present as a ‘warranty and representation’ looks very much like part of the tenancy contract to me because you are not allowing one to go ahead without the other. However I’m not a lawyer so don’t know the nuances of why it might be considered not actually part of the tenancy agreement and not an unallowable workaround. maybe your solution works and all the expert housing lawyers out there missed an obvious solution and all this fuss is over nothing.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 13/01/2026 – 12:33
Ian Narbeth & David M – Ever since I wrote the piece which we are discussing I have tried to think of a way to avoid the loss of an extra month’s rent from a rogue tenant. I have failed. Ian’s idea is interesting but I agree with David M that “clever” drafting is at best ineffective and at worst counter productive. I think that attempts to sidestep, evade, avoid, or in current slang, swerve the RRA2025 provisions will fail. Not just the provisions regarding the first month’s rent, but all the provisions, because Local Housing Authority Enforcement Officers will have huge financial incentives to issue Notices and will do so at the slightest sign of any breach of the law.

The only idea I came up with myself was a face-to-face meeting where both parties sign their parts of the tenancy agreement, the landlord puts the keys on top of the original and the tenant puts cash on top of the counterpart, and the parties slide the two parts across the table to each other. But even this fails because because the agreement has been “entered into” at the moment when both parties have signed and from then on the landlord can’t withhold the keys even if the tenant picks up their cash and pockets it. The traditional conveyancing concept of separate events of execution, exchange, and completion looks as though it may be otiose because RRA2025 introduces the concept of “entering into” which is probably distinguishable from those events.

I believe that if we are confronted by rogue tenants who have no intention of ever paying even the first month’s rent there is nothing we can do except institute proceedings for possession and if that is right then the key message is that tenant selection becomes even more crucial than it was before RRA2025 – if that’s possible.