The Renters’ Rights Act Implementation Roadmap has been be published – view it here.
Advance guidance for landlords and letting agents has also been made available.
To ensure lettings agents and landlords comply with their new duties, councils will get New investigatory powers to:
+ get information from landlords, letting agents and banks or contractors.
+ enter business premises and sometimes homes to check compliance.
+ seize documents if they suspect wrongdoing.
+ Expanded powers to penalise offenders:
+ with bigger fines for breaches, tougher consequences for repeat offenders and strengthened orders for landlords to pay back tenants (rent repayment orders).
+ Local housing authorities will receive a share of over £18 million additional funding this year to help them prepare for the changes, with advance guidance to be published on Friday 14 November 2025.
+ The justice system will also be supported with extra funding to ensure the courts and tribunals have the resource and capacity required to handle these new reforms. This includes developing a new online digital service to simplify the possession process for landlords and tenants.
The government adds that it will publish guidance for tenants before their new rights kick in on 1 May 2026.
The government has also pledged to soon respond to a consultation on extending the Decent Homes Standard to privately rent homes, confirming more details on the standard and an implementation timeline.
Meanwhile, private landlord possession claims using the Section 21 process that are going through the courts on the commencement date will proceed as normal.
After 1 May 2026, the courts will still be able to process Section 21 possessions that are ongoing, for example:
+ if a private landlord served their tenant with a Section 21 notice before 1 May 2026, they must begin court possession proceedings on or before 31 July 2026 when using the Section 21 court process.
+ after this date (31 July 2026), any Section 21 notice where the landlord has not begun proceedings will be invalid and landlords must use the new grounds for possession.
UPDATE: Rental Reform Act implementation roadmap – everything you should know
The last piece of the jigsaw most landlords were waiting for before exiting.
Flood of sales stock for 2026.
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I retired in 2020 (where have those years gone?), but shortly beforehand, I proactively approached the MoJ with an AI-driven digital courts solution specifically for the PRS, and offered a pilot system which was was simple to use and could be quickly and easily implemented as a stand-alone system. The response I received was, thanks, but we have already invested £millions in a new integrated courts system. That was over 5 years ago, and where are we today?
I was since caught up in a truly awful and costly 15 months eviction process, and realised why such a solution was not encouraged. It would largely remove the judges’ ‘tenant-friendly interpretation’ of the rules.
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