📋 The rules at a glance

• Use a Section 13 notice (Form 4A) for every increase. Rent review clauses in tenancy agreements no longer work.
• Give at least two months’ notice.
• Once a year only. No increase in the first year of a tenancy, and at least a year between increases.
• Market rent is the ceiling. There’s no percentage cap, but the new rent must reflect the open market rent for a comparable property.
• Tenants can challenge the increase at the First-tier Tribunal.

📝 How to serve a Section 13 notice

1. Use the current Form 4A from GOV.UK. A letter, email or your own template won’t do, and nor will the old Form 4.
2. Set the right start date. It must be at least two months after the notice is served, and fall at the start of a rental period, usually the same day of the month the tenancy began.
3. Get the details right. Name every joint tenant, and make sure names and addresses match the tenancy agreement.
4. Serve it properly in person, by post, or by email if the tenancy agreement allows it, and keep proof of when and how it was served.

Even if your tenant has already agreed to the increase, you still need to serve Form 4A. You can agree a lower figure afterwards, but confirm it in writing.

⚠️ Mistakes that make a notice invalid

• Using the wrong form
• Giving less than two months’ notice
• A start date that isn’t the beginning of a rental period
• Increasing the rent in the first year, or twice within a year
• Names or addresses that don’t match the tenancy

An invalid notice doesn’t increase the rent. You’d have to serve a new one and start the two months again, and with increases limited to once a year, that delay is costly.

⚖️ If your tenant challenges the increase

A tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal before the new rent is due to start. The tribunal decides the open market rent for the property, taking its condition into account. Under the new rules:

• It can’t set a rent higher than you proposed. It can only confirm your figure or reduce it.
• The increase isn’t backdated. The tenant keeps paying the old rent until the decision, and the new rent usually starts from the next payment date after it.
• Tenants can ask for the new rent to be deferred if paying it would cause hardship.

Tribunals regularly reduce proposed increases. One recent analysis of 200 tribunal decisions found most set the rent below the landlord’s figure, often because the landlord’s evidence was weak. Tribunals give little weight to asking prices. Evidence of what comparable properties have actually let for carries the most weight.

📈 How to set an increase that sticks

• Base it on achieved rents for comparable local properties, not what’s advertised on the portals.
• Account for condition. A dated kitchen or outstanding repairs will count against you.
• Talk to your tenant first. Explain the increase and the evidence behind it before the notice lands.
• Weigh it against the cost of losing them. Tenants can now leave on two months’ notice, and a void month can wipe out a year of a modest increase.

More on pricing in our guide to setting the right rent, and on retention in how to keep good tenants.

🏘️ A note for HMO landlords

If you let rooms on individual tenancies, each one is separate. Each tenant needs their own Form 4A, with its own timing based on when their tenancy started or their rent last changed.

👋 How Portus handles it

On our full property management service, we review rents against local achieved rents every year, recommend whether and how much to increase, and serve Form 4A correctly and on time. If a tenant challenges, we prepare the evidence. Get in touch or call us on 0151 329 3538. For the wider changes, see our Renters’ Rights Act guide.