Landlords need to send a PDF document to their tenants by the end of this month or risk being fined £7,000 per property they own.
After the Renters’ Rights Act came into force last week, it is a legal requirement for landlords to provide their tenants with an official information sheet that explains how the new rules will impact them.
The Act has given tenants a raft of new protections. Fixed-term tenancies will be abolished and replaced with rolling periodic tenancies, meaning renters will no longer be tied into long contracts.
Landlords must give an acceptable reason for ending tenancies, with Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions barred.
The law also gives renters the right to end tenancies with two months’ notice and enables them to better challenge poor conditions and unreasonable rent increases without fear of retaliatory eviction.
Obligation: Landlords and their managing agents need to send an official information sheet to their tenants explaining how the new Renters’ Rights Act will benefit them
Landlord or agent – who sends the document?
The Information Sheet explains how each tenancy may be affected by the changes introduced by the new legislation.
Rather than the onus being on the Government to provide this information to tenants, landlords and their letting agents are responsible for sending the document to tenants.
Those that fail to provide it could be fined up to £7,000 per tenancy by local councils, according to the Government guidelines.
Whether a landlord or letting agent is responsible depends on the type of agreement they have.
In a fully managed service, the agent would normally be expected to issue the documents and manage ongoing compliance on the landlord’s behalf. However, the landlord should double check this has been carried out, as ultimately the £7,000 fine will be on them.
Where the letting agent is only used to find a tenant or collect rent, the agent may have no obligation to send the form.
In that situation a landlord may need to serve the information sheet themselves.
The Government guidance also states that if a landlord has a letting agent who manages the property on their behalf, the agent must provide the information sheet to the tenant, even if the landlord has also provided it.
The information sheet must be provided to any tenancy created before May 1. A copy must be given to every tenant named on the tenancy agreement.
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They must give the exact PDF document from the Government website, either as a printed hard copy which is posted or given to the tenants by hand, or sent as an attachment by email or by text message.
Those renting a room to lodgers in their own home won’t need to provide the PDF.
Megan Eighteen, president for Arla Propertymark, the letting agent membership body, says: ‘The main immediate compliance requirement for existing written tenancies is the new Government Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet.
‘If your tenants already had a written tenancy agreement before 1 May 2026, the landlord or agent must provide that information sheet by 31 May 2026.
‘Failure to do so can lead to enforcement action or a financial penalty from the local authority.’
Lack of awareness among landlords AND tenants
Many landlords may be yet to realise their responsibility, according to Freedom of Information figures reported in industry title, Property Industry Eye.
The information sheet landlords must provide to tenants was only downloaded 153,000 times in the four weeks following its publication on March 20, according to the figures released by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government to the software company Landlord Studio.
That’s a long way off the estimated 2.3 million private landlords in England who are required to serve the document by May 31.
A separate study also suggests that the majority of tenants are not aware of what is happening either.
More than two-thirds of renters have either never heard of the Act or are unclear about what it means for them, according to recent research by the TDS Charitable Foundation.
This lack of awareness extends to key rights strengthened by the Act.
For example, 78 per cent of tenants are unaware they can challenge rent increases at a tribunal, undermining one of the central protections the legislation is designed to reinforce.
