Statutory Instrument 2026 No. 421, made on 16 April 2026 and signed by Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, is the second commencement instrument under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, most of the measures in this instrument take effect on 1 May 2026, with a set of transitional and saving rules to govern the changeover. This matters because the Regulations do not simply switch provisions on. They determine which tenancies move immediately to the new regime, which existing cases remain under older Housing Act 1988 rules, and where local authorities, tribunals and landlords must treat pre-commencement conduct differently from conduct after 1 May 2026.
Regulation 2 is the main tenure reform provision. For assured tenancies that are not social housing assured tenancies, Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the 2025 Act, alongside most of Schedule 1 and Schedule 2, comes into force on 1 May 2026. The Explanatory Note states that this includes the end of fixed-term and assured shorthold tenancies in the private rented sector, so that tenancies under the Housing Act 1988 move to an assured periodic model. The same commencement step also removes the section 21 route in this part of the market. In practical terms, private landlords and letting agents in England will need to rely on the revised statutory possession grounds rather than the previous no-fault process, while tenants move into a system built around periodic occupation and grounds-based possession.
Regulation 3 brings a wider enforcement and market conduct package into force on the same date. From 1 May 2026, the Act’s provisions on discrimination in the rental market, stated asking rents and rental bidding, penalties for unlawful eviction or harassment, student accommodation that is not an HMO, complaints by non-tenants, financial assistance, rent repayment orders, financial penalties and local authority enforcement duties also begin, subject to the exclusions written into the instrument. The same regulation commences section 25(3), which changes homelessness duties for local authorities by omitting part of the Housing Act 1996 scheme identified in the Explanatory Note. For landlords, agents and councils, the immediate effect is operational. The published asking rent will need to be treated as the lawful ceiling for offers; prospective tenants with children or in receipt of benefits gain statutory protection against specified forms of refusal; and enforcement bodies are given clearer duties to act and to notify other authorities. The Regulations also start stronger rent repayment order rules, including extension to some superior landlords, but they hold back elements linked to landlord redress schemes and the private rented sector database until those parts of the 2025 Act are commenced.
One of the more technical changes concerns rent challenges already in train. Regulation 4 deals with existing tenancies where, immediately before 1 May 2026, the tenant could still apply to the appropriate tribunal under section 22 of the Housing Act 1988 but had not yet done so. From 1 May 2026, any application made within the first six months of the tenancy, or the original tenancy where there is a replacement tenancy, must instead be made under new section 14(A1). The Explanatory Note explains why this is necessary. Without a saving rule, the general savings provisions in the Interpretation Act 1978 could have left open a route to make fresh applications under a repealed section 22. The Regulations close that route and also prevent a second application under section 14(A1) where an earlier section 22 application was already made and not withdrawn. For tribunals and advisers, that reduces the risk of duplicated rent litigation during the changeover.
Regulation 5 preserves an important exception for older assured tenancies. The new possession ground for sale of the dwelling-house, inserted by paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 to the 2025 Act, does not apply to a legacy assured tenancy. The instrument defines this as an assured tenancy entered into before 1 May 2026 which, immediately before that date, was not an assured shorthold tenancy under the pre-commencement Housing Act 1988 rules. The practical result is narrow but significant. Landlords with that older class of assured tenancy cannot use new Ground 1A to recover possession for sale. This is a deliberate saving, not an oversight. It means some long-standing tenants will remain outside one of the major new possession routes, even after the wider private rented reforms begin.
Student housing receives its own short transitional arrangement. Regulation 6 applies where, between 1 May 2026 and 30 July 2026, a landlord under an existing tenancy serves a section 8 notice relying on new Ground 4A, the possession ground for student occupation. For that window only, the notice period is treated as two months rather than four months. According to the Explanatory Note, the purpose is to protect the usual letting cycle for the 2026 to 2027 academic year. The measure is temporary, but it is likely to matter immediately to providers planning turnaround dates for student lets. Outside that limited period, the standard four-month period applies.
Regulations 7 and 8 deal with rent increases during the handover from the old rules to the new ones. Where rent on an existing tenancy has already been increased under a contractual rent review clause before 1 May 2026, any section 13(2) notice served on or after that date cannot propose a new rent taking effect until 52 weeks have passed since the earlier increase. The effect is to stop a landlord using the old contractual mechanism and the new statutory mechanism in quick succession. The instrument also preserves the pre-commencement versions of sections 13 and 14 of the Housing Act 1988 for certain notices served before 1 May 2026 that propose a rent increase taking effect on or after that date. If the tenant can still refer the notice to the tribunal, or has already done so and the tribunal has not yet decided the case, the old rules continue until the referral window closes, the tribunal determines the rent, or the parties tell the tribunal that a determination is no longer required. For landlords, tenants and advisers, this is one of the key switch-over provisions to track.
Regulations 9 to 11 cover three further transition points. Shared owners who have sublet under an existing tenancy are given a one-month window from 1 May 2026 to notify tenants in writing that the sale-ground re-letting exemption may apply. Homeless applicants who accepted a private rented sector offer before 1 May 2026 keep the protection of section 195A of the Housing Act 1996, so that if they become homeless again within two years and are not intentionally homeless, the main duty can still arise regardless of priority need. And the amendments to rent repayment orders made by sections 98, 103 and 104 of the 2025 Act do not apply retrospectively to offences committed before commencement, or to the pre-1 May 2026 part of a continuing offence. Taken together, the Regulations show that commencement is being used as a policy tool rather than a simple start date. According to the instrument’s Explanatory Note, no separate impact assessment was prepared because a full assessment accompanied the 2025 Act itself. The immediate task now falls to landlords, agents, local authorities, tribunals and advisers, all of whom will need to separate pre-commencement facts from post-commencement rights and duties from 1 May 2026 onwards.