Section 13 Rent Increases After the Renters' Rights Act

Rent increases changed on 1 May 2026

If you are still increasing rent the way you did last year, there is a good chance your next notice is invalid. The Renters' Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026 and it did not tinker with Section 13 — it rebuilt it.

Every private tenancy in England is now an assured periodic tenancy. Fixed terms are gone. Assured shorthold tenancies no longer exist, and every fixed term that was running on 1 May converted automatically to a rolling periodic tenancy with no end date. That single change is what makes most of the old rent-increase advice wrong.

Here are the five things that are genuinely different, and what each one means for a landlord in Luton or anywhere else in England.

1. Two months' notice, not one

A Section 13 notice now requires a minimum of two months' notice on every periodic tenancy. The old one-month rule is what most landlords still have in their heads, and it is the single most common reason a notice fails in 2026.

The new rent must also still take effect at the beginning of a tenancy period. Two months from the date you happen to post the letter is not the same thing as two months landing on a period start date, and getting that wrong invalidates the notice just as surely as the wrong notice period does.

2. Once a year, and only once

Rent can be increased once a year. That means 52 weeks from the start of the tenancy, and then 52 weeks between each increase after that.

You cannot go again inside the year. If your first notice was defective and you want to correct it, that does not reset the clock in your favour — which is exactly why it is worth getting the first one right rather than treating it as a draft.

3. It has to be Form 4A

The prescribed form is Form 4A. A letter is not a Section 13. Neither is an email, however politely it is worded, and neither is a rent-increase template you saved a few years ago.

Download the current form from GOV.UK each time you serve one. Prescribed forms are updated without much announcement, and serving last year's version is an avoidable way to lose two months.

4. Your rent review clause no longer works

This is the one that catches out the most experienced landlords, because it is the one that used to let you skip Section 13 entirely.

Contractual rent review clauses are now unenforceable. Open market reviews, index-linked increases and pre-agreed uplifts written into the tenancy agreement are all caught. It does not matter that the tenant signed it, and it does not matter that it was fair.

Section 13 is the only route to a rent increase on an assured periodic tenancy. The narrow exception is for relevant low-cost and social tenancies, which is unlikely to apply if you are letting privately.

5. Your tenant can dispute it

A tenant who thinks the proposed rent is above market can apply to the First-tier Tribunal, and they must do so before the new rent is due to start.

Two things changed here that matter to you. The tribunal can no longer set a rent higher than the figure you proposed, so there is no longer any downside to the tenant in challenging. And your tenant pays nothing extra until the tribunal has decided — so a dispute does not just risk the increase, it delays every penny of it.

The practical consequence is simple: price against real comparable evidence, not against what you would like to achieve. An optimistic figure is now much more likely to be tested, and the testing costs you time even when you win.

What this means in practice

Most landlords will get a Section 13 notice wrong in one of two ways this year. Either they use the old one-month period, or they rely on a rent review clause that stopped working in May. Both are quiet failures — the notice looks fine, the tenant does not query it, and the problem only surfaces when you try to enforce the higher rent or recover arrears based on it.

If you have served a notice since 1 May, it is worth going back and checking the notice period, the form, and the start date against the tenancy period. If you are about to serve one, check it before it goes out rather than after.

Serving one this quarter?

Send it to us first and we will check it free of charge, whether you are a client or not. It takes us a few minutes and it is considerably cheaper than losing two months of an increase.

If you would like a wider conversation about your portfolio, our dispute support or tenancy strategy call covers rent strategy, compliance and where your current tenancies stand under the new rules.

General information, not legal advice. The law is stated as at the date of publication — check GOV.UK before serving any notice.