Category: Renters’ Rights Act

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Renters’ Rights Act lays the foundations of housing justice for private renters

On 26th October 2022, I received a Section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction notice. That meant my partner and I had two months to find a new flat. Three unsuccessful offers, six weeks, a lot of stress and a 40% increase in our monthly costs later, we managed to move into a new place in the same neighbourhood in time for Christmas. It was a grim, expensive experience.

Frankly though, my partner and I could take it. We had some savings, jobs flexible enough to allow us to go to flat viewings at little notice, and enough income to swallow the bitter pill of rapidly escalating rents.

Most private renters are less able to absorb this shock than we were. Almost half have no savings. The private rented sector (PRS) is now home to 1 in 4 of households with children in England, up from 1 in 10 in 2003/04. By 2040, over 2 million pensioners are projected to be renting from a private landlord. Many private renters can’t drop everything to hunt for a new flat because of work, caring responsibilities and health problems. Those with children in school or nursery have less choice over where they can move without disrupting their families. Many people simply want to stay in the community they know and where they feel at home. The need to stabilise life in the PRS is clear and urgent.

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The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is the biggest win for renters in a generation. It is a reset after decades in which England built one of the least regulated private rented sectors in Western Europe. As of 1st May 2026, Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions are gone. That will curtail opportunities for rogue landlords to use ‘revenge evictions’, where renters who ask for repairs or complain about poor conditions are simply turfed out. Landlords will need to give a reason before evicting people – for example because they are selling the property or moving into it themselves. In these cases, renters will now get four months rather than two to find a new place to live. Given intense pressures in many local housing markets and a social housing system stretched to breaking point, having to move will continue to be a struggle. But those extra two months will be a lifeline for many. They will give renters more time, more choice, and more power.

Other changes will also help rebalance the scales in renters’ favour. Landlords will only be able to put up rent once a year, cannot demand large upfront payments, and cannot invite or accept bids above the asking rent, to name only a few. The Act is a reset after decades of unusually aggressive deregulation. The Housing Act 1988 made short-term tenancies and ‘no fault’ evictions the norm, helping create one of Western Europe’s least secure private rental markets.

But the single biggest problem for private renters remains: it is really, really expensive. Under new rules coming into force on Friday, renters will have a legal route to challenge rent hikes above market rates. Since the biggest rent increases happen when renters move between tenancies, fewer moves should also provide some protection. But none of this helps with the reality that market rates themselves are already unaffordable for many. Britain still needs far more homes, including social housing. But even a major housebuilding push would take years to ease rental pressures. Millions of renters need relief now – not in a decade or more’s time.

It’s no surprise that think tanks, charities, campaigners and tenants’ unions are now calling for different forms of rent regulation to cool or reduce rents over shorter timescales. These range from caps on how rents can rise within tenancies, to full rent freezes between tenancies, to measures to reduce rents from current highs by linking them to reference rents based on local incomes and housing conditions. Others continue the long-running campaign to increase Local Housing Allowance (housing benefit for the PRS) so that it covers the costs of renting. We need a plan to make life affordable for renters, and I hope that Red Brick can be a space for the left to share different ideas and evidence.

But we shouldn’t let this debate distract from what a huge achievement the Renters’ Rights Act is. It lays the foundations of housing justice for private renters. It will allow us to plan our lives, address problems in our homes without fear of eviction, and is likely to mean fewer moves and fewer rent hikes. That is a good place from which to plan our next steps.

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Blog Post Renters' Rights Act

Finally, a new era for private renters is here

For some people, 1st May 2026 will not represent anything out of the ordinary beyond maybe being happy at the early signs of summer and looking forward to the coming bank holidays. But for private renters in England (one in five of the population), it will represent a new era, with the Government’s Renters’ Rights Act promising the biggest shake up to renters’ rights since the 1988 Housing Act.

The new law is a long time in the making. Generation Rent was formed back in 2014 with the aim of campaigning for change to our broken renting system. This led to Theresa May’s government first promising to scrap Section 21 evictions in 2019. Since then we’ve had a pandemic and the Conservative Government’s Renters’ Reform Bill, which fell when Rishi Sunak called a snap election two years ago.

But finally we are here. While not the answer to all our problems, the Renter’s Rights Act is certainly a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between renters and landlords which has caused so much hardship and misery in recent years.

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The headline change is the scrapping of Section 21 evictions, which allow a landlord to evict a tenant for no reason with just two months’ notice. According to analysis by Shelter, someone approaches a local council as homeless every 21 minutes due to Section 21. Meanwhile, the looming threat of a retaliatory eviction means we renters are terrified of raising disrepair issues or challenging unfair rent increases.

From 1st May, outside of rent arrears and anti-social behaviour, landlords will only be able to evict tenants to sell the home, or move themselves or a family member in. They will need to give the renter four months’ notice in these cases and, to prevent abuse, they will be banned from re-letting the home for 12 months afterwards, meaning renters in England will enjoy better protections against eviction than in Scotland or Wales.

Alongside this, there are a host of other changes that will benefit renters from 1st May. The end of fixed-term tenancies will give us more flexibility, allowing us to vote with our feet if a home is poor quality or a landlord doesn’t fulfil their obligations. Meanwhile the limit on rent in advance to one month will help reduce the huge upfront cost of renting and the end of bidding wars will stop the practice of pitting renters against each other to drive up prices. We will also have the right to request a pet and have more incentives to challenge rent increases.

However, fairer winds for renters are not necessarily guaranteed. For the new law to reach into people’s homes and improve their lives, it must be properly enforced by local councils, while renters need to educate themselves about their new rights.

A recent investigation by The Guardian found that two-thirds of councils in England have not prosecuted a single landlord in the past three years, despite receiving 300,000 complaints from tenants during that time. Meanwhile, half of local authorities responsible for housing didn’t fine a landlord between 2022 and 2024, with fewer than 2% of renter complaints leading to any formal enforcement action.

This has to change. We were pleased that the Government recently announced additional funding for council enforcement of the Renters’ Rights Act, and will be working hard to make sure councils are using their new powers to make sure landlords abide by the new law.

But this legislation is finally a recognition that renting from a private landlord has changed dramatically since 1988. No longer do people just rent for a few years in their early 20s. The increase in house prices and loss of social housing will mean more and more of us could be trapped renting for decades or even a lifetime. Homes are the foundations of our lives and private renters need those strong foundations as badly as anyone else.

When Generation Rent first called for the end of Section 21 over a decade ago, we were laughed out of rooms for being unrealistic. The change we have seen since then is proof that renters have been able to have a real say in the decisions that affect our lives, and that our voices have the power to reshape our world. Now, for the first time in a generation, millions of renters can look to the future with greater security, confidence, and hope.

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Blog Post Renters' Rights Act

No family should lose their home on a landlord’s whim

“There’s no light in the kitchen. The family are using a desk lamp in there, and there’s no cooker that works. There’s water running down the walls. We sent blankets home for the kids. But they don’t want to complain – they will be thrown out, and that means temporary accommodation – and you know it will be one of those hotels on the Hagley Road in Birmingham … and how will they get the kids to school?”

I was sat with the safeguarding lead for one of my primary schools, talking about one of their families and their private rented flat. Just another day as teacher in one of the lowest income areas of the country.

This story is a composite – but my inbox and my surgeries are full of them. I have talked to so many families, out of their minds with worry about keeping their kids in school, clutching an unwanted Section 21 or an unreasonable rent rise letter.

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After two decades of campaigning for renters, I became the Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury in the Black Country in 2024. We are proud and we are resilient, but 50 years of deindustrialisation and 14 long years of Tory austerity mean wages are low and poverty is high. Social renting is about a third – but private renting is rising fast, up to nearly a quarter of all households.

Much of the private rented sector in my ends is former council homes sold off over decades, leaving families who might once have expected lifelong security exposed to higher costs and instability. And my towns have few professional renters, no student blocks – but an increasing number of poorly managed Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) rented out by the room, aimed squarely at those with few other choices.

I think of the renters I have met these last two years – struggling with rogue landlords and high rents, nervous every day to raise the gas safety certificate four months overdue, the back door that doesn’t close, the fan heater which eats money cos the landlord won’t fix the central heating.

From 1st May, that changes. No more no fault evictions. No more Section 21 letters dropping like a bombshell on an unsuspecting family. Every renter will now have a rolling tenancy. If they keep up with the rent, they keep their home.

The law now recognises a simple truth that renters have always known: a home is not a favour that can be withdrawn at will. It is the foundation of family life, security and dignity.

For 40 years, Section 21 stacked the cards firmly in favour of the landlord’s right to profit from an asset, over the renter’s right to a stable home. And that power imbalance meant renters constantly worried about whether they’d be able to keep their kids in school and stay in their home. It kept people silent about disrepair, afraid to complain, reluctant to put down roots.

But no more. That is why the end of Section 21 matters so deeply. Renters will now know that no one can throw them out of their home just cos. Landlords will still be able to run their businesses; they will have clear grounds to regain their property when they genuinely need to. But risk – previously wholly borne by renters – will finally be shared.

And a safe, decent home matters too. Applying the Decent Homes Standard to private renting, bringing in Awaab’s Law, and backing councils to enforce the rules will finally tackle the damp, mould, faulty electrics and infestations that I have seen renter after renter forced to endure. A landlord who will not fix a home should not be rewarded.

In Tipton and Wednesbury, what many of my constituents actually need is a social home. But with 21,000 households on the waiting list locally, no matter how much we build (and we are building as much as we can), that won’t be where many families live. So getting the quality of private rents up, making them secure, giving families a home they know they can stay in – that matters. 

So to everyone who rents their home, I say this: this Labour Government has your back. No more no fault evictions. Security for families. Safer homes. Proper action on rogue landlords.

Over the last two years, I have voted for this change over and over – so many times, as the landlord lobby mounted one last stand for their right to control tenants’ lives through the House of Lords.

Take a moment to feel proud. All of us who kept on taking on the landlord lobby, who kept on standing up for renters – all of us who voted in a Labour government – we made this happen. 

Antonia Bance is the Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Before her election she was a senior trade union officer at the TUC. She was previously head of campaigns at Shelter and a board member of both the Nationwide Foundation and Generation Rent.

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