Date Published 22 May 2026
For years, landlords have faced growing hostility in public debate, with policy increasingly shaped around the idea that tenants require ever-greater protection from unscrupulous landlords. Many landlords now argue the result is legislation that offers significant protection to rogue tenants — often at considerable financial and emotional cost to responsible property owners.
Tenants who deliberately ignore tenancy agreements and exploit procedural delays can now leave landlords facing months of stress, arrears, legal costs, and uncertainty before regaining possession of their property. As a result, thorough tenant referencing and due diligence have become more important than ever. Once a rogue tenant is in place, resolving the situation can be slow and expensive.
Yet the scale of the problem the legislation claimed to address was arguably far smaller than public rhetoric suggested. Around 0.5% of tenancies — roughly one in 200 — ended in bailiff-enforced eviction. Despite this, high-profile cases were repeatedly amplified by politicians and the media until exceptional situations became portrayed as commonplace. A dominant narrative emerged that landlords were routinely exploiting vulnerable tenants through excessive rent increases and unfair practices. However, many of the protections designed to prevent this already existed long before the Renters' Rights Act.
Most tenancies in England were previously governed by the Housing Act 1988, which already imposed strict rules around rent increases for Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs).
Under the previous system, for fixed-term ASTs, rents could only be increased if:
• the tenancy agreement included a rent review clause; or
• the tenant agreed to the increase.
For periodic ('rolling') tenancies, landlords generally had to use a formal Section 13 notice.
Tenants also already had important safeguards:
• rent increases were generally limited to once every 12 months;
• landlords had to provide notice;
• tenants could challenge excessive increases through the First-tier Tribunal.
The Tribunal could assess local market evidence and determine a fair market rent — and, in some cases, even set the rent higher than the landlord originally proposed if it believed the requested increase remained below market value. Given these existing protections, many landlords continue to ask: what actual problem did the Renters' Rights Act fix?
Critics argue the reforms responded more to political pressure and public perception than to widespread systemic abuse. Meanwhile, responsible landlords — already facing rising mortgage costs, taxation changes, and growing compliance burdens — are left carrying greater risk with fewer practical protections. What is already clear is that landlords now operate in a far more cautious environment, where careful tenant selection is no longer simply good practice — it is essential risk management.
