Form 4A is live and here is what the guidance notes actually say
2 weeks ago | 7 comments
The spite and division in the Renters’ Rights Act?
8:01 AM, 26th June 2026, 4 days ago
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Hello, The government rightly goes a long way to prevent friction and division in diversity and culture.
However, the Renters’ Rights Act (RRA) has implemented legislation that causes friction and inflames the landlord-tenant relationship. It is hard to see anything other than spite, a lack of awareness and incompetence being the reasons for this. Sadly, the government appears to be using spite as their main motive.
To give the real-life experience of being taken through the rent tribunal process by an aggrieved tenant, prior to the RRA changes.
Firstly, to set the context, whilst there are millions of private rented sector (PRS) tenancies, the government website shows a total of 17k tribunal decisions, so just a tiny percentage of landlords have been through the process, but I am one and here is my experience.
As a landlord in 2023, pre the Renters’ Reform Act, I increased rent from £520 to £600 on a 3-bed modern mews property in Lancashire. I had previously held the rent at £520 for 14 years and had a good relationship with the tenant. The property value at £130k was returning less than 5%.
Things changed when I increased the rent, the tenant refused to pay the increase and took me to a rent review tribunal, which I believe she had to pay for (I think about £47).
I felt that I was raising the rent to well below market, and this was not unfair. For me, the tribunal papers took a few hours of work, and the tribunal process was very slow. I made lots of calls to them to chase progress. The tribunal told me they were understaffed. I think the rent tribunal section had access to two or three staff.
The process took 6 months, from 15th November 2023 to 26th May 2024. The tribunal eventually assessed the rent at £700, which was £100 more than asked for, and they backdated the award to November 15th, so I was awarded £1080 in back rent.
I was awarded £600 more than I had asked for, as I only put the rent up to £600, not £700. Rather than resolve the issue, the friction continued, and the tenant stopped paying rent completely. I issued a Section 8 notice. The eviction was finally granted after many months of delay and was adjourned a couple of times due to the tenant making false claims, which had to be answered. The tenant eventually did a moonlight dash owing rent.
Anyway, under the new spiteful RRA revisions, things would be different.
I now have to give two months’ notice of the rise using the government Section 13 notice. Effectively, the tenant can keep another month’s money before action can be taken. For a London or Manchester property where a landlord may already have capital losses due to devaluation, this could be thousands of additional pounds.
The new government rent rise Section 13 form explains to the tenant that they can object to any rise as late as one day before the rise comes into effect.
So the tenant can delay the start of the tribunal process by two months. The tenant will not have to pay any increase until the process is complete and it won’t be backdated. The tribunal is free for qualifying tenant. This will effectively give all tenants eight months immunity from rental increases and if they “lose” i.e., the rent is assessed as more than current, the rent will only be raised to what is being asked for by the landlord and not the market rent.
Effectively, all tenants are being financially incentivised to object to any rent rise by not backdating it to the effective date of the rise. Why on earth would the rent rise not take effect from the date it was due once it has been assessed as fair?
This legislation can only serve to create friction between landlords and tenants, as it is unfair and spiteful, and that is the last thing a tenant-landlord relationship needs.
Whilst I would consider myself a fair landlord, I am more concerned by other whisperings.
The new tribunal process does not reference market rates and whilst, I have kept rents low to maintain good tenant relations I do increase to market rent when a tenant leaves.
I feel this is fair, but there is a suggestion that the government may implement a policy to link new tenancy rents to old ones. This would prevent me from charging the market rent on a new tenancy.
This would effectively create a pool of cheaper rental properties, but at the expense of landlords who did not charge the market rent. To reward those who increased rents but discriminate against those who did not, does not sit well with me.
I am tempted to put rents up to market rate on the basis that there is a market rate, and why should some tenants pay less than others for the same service? It’s not fair to those tenants who pay the market rent.
The only way to do this effectively would be to put my rents above market rate, and let the tenant object, and the tribunal will set it at the market rent. This will cause friction, but the rent will be set at the correct level as assessed by the market
I feel torn and probably represent many landlords who have a good relationship with tenants that will now be tested because of the government’s interference.
What does the Property118 community think?
Thanks,
Paul
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Member Since June 2019 - Comments: 870
10:03 PM, 26th June 2026, About 3 days ago
So if a tenant on benefits receives a rent repayment order, their benefits would be stopped so in effect the council will get the money back!
Member Since January 2015 - Comments: 1512 - Articles: 1
10:33 AM, 27th June 2026, About 3 days ago
If the majority of landlords charge less than market rent that becomes the new market rent.
Landlords should all be charging the proper market rent for their property’s area to keep the market rent.
The PRS is a business and should be run as such.
Member Since December 2023 - Comments: 34
1:27 PM, 28th June 2026, About 1 day ago
The two negatives as far as I can see are the inability to backdated and that the year required before the next increase only begins after the tribunal is complete. So actually it’s going to be a rent increase about every 18 months to 2 years, rather than every year.
I think this means the best action is actually to ensure rents are reviewed every year. Tell the tenant what market rent for the area is and where that data is from. The problems for landlords happen when they leave the rent for years, then need to increase rents by a large amount quickly, for example because of a mortgage renewal. Then a 6 month or year delay on that rise can be a serious problem for the landlord, and the lange rise can be a problem for the tenant.
But it’s usually not much different for a landlord if you raise rents every year, or twice as much every two years because of tribunals. And this avoids tenants suddenly having to find £100-200 extra a month – I know that I would really struggle if I had to do this, so why would a tenant be any different. We get used to our level of income and expenditure and sudden changes are hard. They therefore incentivise going to tribunals more as well.
Member Since December 2025 - Comments: 13
8:48 PM, 28th June 2026, About 1 day ago
As and when tenants move out up until energy performance rating of c becomes mandatory, I’ll be selling any properties that become vacant. Also having mostly victorian properties and under this current extremely anti small landlord regime. I won’t waste any of my own money on trying to upgrade to epc c. If I can get grants to get the work done I’ll have it done. Though as the deadline approaches I’ll give any working non grant qualifying tenants notice to quit and sell up. If any of my tenants want to buy their rented property off me I’d be happy to sell it to them at a fair price.
As a footnote one of my tenants has just had a phone call from some lawyers asking if they had any damp or problems. So things are going to get impossible soon for private landlords that this government and the last government seem intent on destroying.
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2166
11:40 AM, 29th June 2026, About 12 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 26/06/2026 – 22:03
The problem is that if the tenants have been on benefits but it then turns out that they weren’t eligible for benefits the benefits people can come and get the money back from you as the landlord. When you are carrying out the right-to-rent checks and affordability checks you can of course ask all tenants what their sources of income are. But if the tenant doesn’t declare the income they receive as cash from their various side-hustles then there is no way that you can know what their eligibility is. And if the tenant moves into your property and either becomes ineligible for benefits, or e.g. starts a new side-hustle that would make them ineligible for their housing benefit, you have no powers to find out about this or insist that they tell you, not even under the Renters Rights Act; the criteria for eviction are (persistently) not paying the rent, not looking after the property, antisocial behaviour. You have no rights to check benefit entitlement and even if you ask and the tenants don’t comply, you have no rights to evict. The longer the benefits tenants are in your property the greater the risk.
When it comes to anti-social behaviour you have no powers to act as a landlord either, only a right to do a landlords inspection after giving 24 hours notice; it is the council and the police that have the powers and they have no obligations to pass the information on to you in order that you can take action. The power that you did have (no fault evictions) has just been taken away from you by labour with its Renters Rights Act; labour left the fundamental problems there, unfixed, and introduced a whole raft of unnecessary measures that leave landlords with no option but to increase the rent year-on-year, when previously many landlords did not do this.
If you are under pressure to take benefits tenants because of the Labour Renters Rights Act, if in addition to personal identification details you ask for last two years of tax returns, last two years of SA302, evidence of savings in a UK financial institution e.g. bank or building society, and evidence of ALL other forms of income and you insist on being paid directly then IF the housing benefits people come after you for housing benefit paid to the tenant you (1) would have the evidence that the rent you have received COULD have come from other sources (2) have the evidence that the tenant either did or didn’t declare other sources of income (3) have the evidence that you applied affordability checks, i.e. non mea culpa. So you would have a better chance of defending yourself, and even if you couldn’t you’d have enough information to apply for a CCJ, pass the debt on to a debt collector or sell the debt on. Of course, you still have no POWERS to ensure the tenant is eligible for benefits and it would probably make sense to insist on a signed letter from the benefits office confirming evidence of entitlement to benefits.
Your best defence if the courts aren’t working correctly is don’t let the problem tenants into the property in the first place, screen them out.
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2166
11:43 AM, 29th June 2026, About 12 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by John Hole at 28/06/2026 – 20:48
This is sensible because the most recent evidence suggests that improving an EPC from band C to D does not significantly increase the value of a property when selling to an owner occupier.
Improving the EPC band from D to A, B or C may provide an excuse to raise rents as rents are significantly higher for A and B rated properties, especially in the North of England.