No Rent Freeze in England—but New Restrictions on Rents and Rent Increases

One thing which landlords fear is rent control. Limits on the rent that they can charge and the increases that they can make.

Starmer’s government ruled this out, and landlords will be pleased to know that the current administration has ruled them out too.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said that rent controls introduced elsewhere had not “necessarily brought rents down”.

She pointed out that the changes made by the Renters’ Rights Act were “already having a significant impact on the market”.

So what are the Renters’ Rights Act rules (applicable after 1 May 2026) that Angela Rayner is relying on?

Before a tenancy is entered into:

All landlords must give a ‘proposed rent’ in all property adverts (except ‘to let’ boards), and this is the rent that must be charged once the tenancy starts.

Landlords who fail to provide a ‘proposed rent’ or who enter into any form of ‘rental bidding’ or even if they say that they might be willing to accept a higher rent, can be given a Civil Penalty by their Local Council of up to £7,000.

It is also strictly forbidden to take any form of rent in advance before the tenancy agreement is signed. Local Authorities (normally through their trading standards offices) can issue a civil penalty of up to £5,000 if they find that advance rental payments have been accepted.

So if tenants pay rent in advance to landlords at this time, the safest course of action is to refund it.

Between the tenancy agreement signing and the tenancy start, landlords can take one month’s rent in advance only.

After the tenancy has started

If tenants consider that the property rent is more than the market rent, they can apply for ‘an open market rent determination’ provided the application is made within six months of a new tenancy start.

All assured tenancies are now periodic and the tenancy period is the same as the rental period.

So if a monthly tenancy starts on 3 July, the tenancy period will run from the 3rd day in the month to the 2nd day in the month.

Rent for that month will be payable during that period. Most tenancy agreements will require rent to be paid at the start of the period (ie on the 3rd day of the month in our example). Although, by default (i.e., if there is no tenancy agreement clause), rent is payable in arrears at the end of the rental period.

However, landlords cannot require rent to be paid earlier than the first day of the rental period. Or, in other words, they cannot require a tenant to pay February’s rent in January.

If tenants want to pay rent in advance, though, they can. So if a student wants to pay their rent up front from their grant or loan, to guard against spending it by mistake on something else, they can. But landlords cannot require them to do this – it is up to them.

Increasing rent

Finally, landlords can only increase rent once a year (with no increases permitted during the first year of the tenancy) using the statutory notice procedure set out in the Housing Act 1988, section 13.

The statutory notice is Form 4A.

There are no special rules for landlords on doing this – for example, the new rent does not have to be subject to any limits such as being not more than a certain percentage.

However, if tenants are unhappy with the new rent, they can challenge it to the First Tier Tribunal.

This is the same procedure as that used to challenge the rent during the first six months of the tenancy and the same form must be used.

The procedure is set out in the government guidance here. The most important points are that

• The application must be made before the date on which the proposed new rent is due to take effect as set out in the Form 4A, and
• There is a fee of £47.
• Tenants must provide a copy of their tenancy agreement
• The name, address and contact details of their landlords, and
• (Where the tenant is challenging a rent increase) a copy of the landlord’s notice

The government guidance points out that the tribunal will need as much detail as possible to assist them in coming to a decision, so tenants should provide further information about the property (as suggested in the guidance) together with information about rents charged for similar properties nearby.

As the tribunal is currently under pressure, it is likely to be some time before the application is dealt with, but landlords and tenants can negotiate during this time and hopefully will be able to reach agreement without the need to actually proceed with the application.

However, tenants should make the application even if they are in discussions with their landlord, as if they miss the application deadline, they will have lost their chance to challenge the rent, and the proposed rent in the landlord’s notice will take effect.

And finally

Although many tenants and tenants’ organisations will be disappointed that the government is not going to proceed with rent caps, my view is that this is the right decision.

Rent caps have been shown in the past to be counterproductive. They tend to discourage landlords, which generally results in fewer properties available to rent.

For example:

• Rented property in England reduced from around 80% of households before the First World War, to about 9% of households in the 1980s, which is believed to be due in part to the restrictions on the rent landlords could charge under the ‘fair rent’ rules.
• The rent caps in Scotland have also resulted in a reduction of properties available to rent, and
• Berlin’s 2020 rent cap reduced rents in regulated properties but was accompanied by a substantial contraction in available listings. It was struck down by Germany’s Constitutional Court in 2021 because the Berlin state legislature lacked the power to enact it.

See also our post here where we discuss some other issues.

• So our advice for landlords is to be rigorous in applying for a modest rent increase annually to keep rents up to date with inflation.
• Our advice for tenants is to negotiate this with landlords and apply for a review if they consider it is above the market rent.

However, note that if a tenant’s rent has been considerably below a market rent for many years and the landlord decides to increase it to the market rent level, tenants will not be able to object to this on the basis that it is a substantial and (for them) unaffordable increase.

The Tribunal can help them by delaying the rental increase for a further two months but no more.