We have known for a while that the government will publish an information sheet which must be served on existing tenants as at 1 May 2026.
The form has finally been published!
All landlords should now download it from this page and serve it to their tenants.
The government say that the information sheet is only valid if downloaded from the page – so make sure you do!
Tips on service
Be aware that failure to serve this information sheet on your tenants before 31 May 2026 will make you vulnerable to a Local Authority civil penalty notice fine of up to £7,000.
The government have published guidance to local authorities on the starting point for fines to be issued, which for this is £4,000.
So it is very important that you can prove you served the information sheet.
It must be served on all tenants – so if you have several tenants in one property on a joint and several tenancy, you must serve it on all of them.
Otherwise, if your tenants don’t like you, there is nothing to stop them from telling the Local Authority (after 31 May) that they never got the form from you.
If this happens, you need to be able to prove them wrong!
How to be able to prove service
The best way is to go round to the property (maybe for an inspection visit), hand them the information sheet along with a copy for them to sign and date it as received. You need to get all the joint tenants to sign.
If some of the tenants can’t be there, then serve it on the missing tenants separately, for example, via email as an attachment. Asking one of joint tenants to give the information sheet to the others is not enough.
Other methods of service include
- Sending it as an email attachment, asking them to confirm receipt. If they don’t, then serve it again another way.
- Posting the form in an envelope addressed to the tenant (one for each tenant if more than one) through the letterbox of the property with an independent witness. Maybe take a photograph with a camera that gives the date
- Sending it by recorded delivery to each of the tenants – but watch out for tenants refusing to accept delivery. If this happens then serve it again another way.
- Sending two copies to each tenant by normal post where you can prove posting. The tenant can claim that one got lost in the post, but it is unlikely that two would be lost in the post!
- If you are signing up new tenants before 1 May, then give them the form with the tenancy agreement and get them to sign it as received.
What you need to be able to do
If the Local Authority contact you after 1 June, sending you a ‘notice to intent’ to issue a Civil Penalty Notice on the basis that you failed to serve the information sheet – how can you prove them wrong?
The best way to prove this is by sending the Local Authority Officer a scanned copy of the information form, signed and dated by all tenants as received.
But however you serve it, make sure you do this on time and have proof that it was done.
To be clear, we know that we have to serve the information sheet on new tenants at the start of a tenancy granted on or after 1 May 2026 and to all existing tenants. For existing tenants, is it important to keep within the transition window, 1 May 2026 to 31 May 2026?
I wonder if the trigger for compliance should be the commencement date of the legislation (1 May), rather than the publication date of the document.
In other words, are we required to have provided it within the statutory window and not simply “at any time after publication”.
The guidance page says “You must give this Information Sheet by 31 May 2026, or you could be fined up to £7,000.”. Not “for existing tenancies, it must be served between 1 May and 31 May 2026”.
So as long as you serve it between now and 31 May (and can prove this), you should be OK. But if you want to serve it after 1 May, that’s fine too, so long as you do it before the 31st.