United Kingdom: rental market overview

England's private rental sector changed shape on 1 May 2026, when the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came fully into force. Since then, the assured periodic tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 — as amended by the 2025 Act — is the only form of private letting available; fixed-term tenancies have been abolished, and there is no longer a way to sign someone into, say, a twelve-month lock-in. A tenancy is periodic from day one, meaning either side can act on it without waiting for a term to expire. This is a genuinely large shift for anyone used to the old assured shorthold tenancy (AST) system, and it's worth re-checking any template or precedent you're using against it — an agreement still built around fixed terms and the old Section 21 process no longer reflects how English tenancies actually work.

The property side of the agreement still carries a familiar structure: the landlord confirms clean legal title, states the property is let for residential use only, and no business activity or unauthorized subletting is permitted. What's genuinely different now is the deposit and the notice mechanics — both covered below — because those are exactly the two areas the Renters' Rights Act 2025 rewired.

The deposit rule is unforgiving on formality: it must be placed in a government-backed tenancy deposit protection scheme, full stop. This isn't a best practice, it's a hard requirement — failing to protect the deposit exposes the landlord to statutory financial penalties and can actually block certain notices the landlord might later want to serve, which makes it one of the most common ways cross-border or first-time landlords trip themselves up in England. There's no equivalent of simply holding the money in the landlord's own account and settling up informally at the end, as is common practice in some other markets Brokik covers. Get this step wrong at the start of the tenancy and it weakens the landlord's legal position for the entire length of the letting, not just at deposit-return time.

There is no fixed term to run out and no Section 21 "no-fault" route anymore — both were abolished by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. A landlord can only end the tenancy on one of the statutory Section 8 grounds (for example rent arrears or the landlord's own genuine need to sell or move in, depending on which ground applies and its specific conditions), which has to be formally served and justified. The tenant, by contrast, keeps a lot of flexibility: they can leave at any time by giving two months' notice, without needing a reason. Rent increases have their own tightly defined channel too — a landlord can raise the rent only once a year, and only through the statutory Section 13 notice process; any rent-review clause written into the tenancy agreement itself is simply void and has no legal effect, no matter what it says. Because the whole system pivoted on a single date, it's worth being explicit about timing: any tenancy that started life as an assured shorthold tenancy before 1 May 2026 converted automatically into an assured periodic tenancy under the transitional rules, so there's no separate category of "old-style" contracts still running under Section 21 today — the abolition applies across the board, not just to brand-new lettings.

Brokik's handover protocol for England follows the same working mechanics as the other templates in this guide: the property is handed over once the protocol is signed and the first month's rent is credited, and the document records the meter readings, the property's condition, and a fittings inventory. The tenant undertakes to return the property in the same condition, allowing for fair wear and tear from ordinary use — the standard the deposit protection scheme's own adjudicators will apply if a dispute over the deposit ever needs resolving. A well-documented protocol at move-in is the single strongest piece of evidence either side can bring to that kind of dispute.

Upkeep splits the same way it does across Brokik's other markets: the tenant takes care of routine maintenance and repairs at their own cost and must promptly tell the landlord about anything more serious, while the landlord keeps the building's installations and equipment in working order. No structural alterations or unauthorized changes to the property without written consent. What's specifically English here is the compliance layer sitting on top of all this: alongside the deposit protection scheme, landlords letting in England carry statutory obligations around property safety and habitability standards that exist entirely outside the tenancy agreement itself — worth checking separately from the contract template, since the contract records the parties' upkeep duties but doesn't itself discharge the landlord's regulatory obligations.