The Renters' Reform Bill: What We Said vs What Happened

We first published this in May 2023, the week the Renters (Reform) Bill was introduced. Three years and one general election later, the reforms are law. This is an updated version: what we expected then, what actually happened, and where the differences fell.

The short version

• The 2023 Bill never became law. It ran out of parliamentary time at the 2024 election.
• A second bill picked it up and became the Renters' Rights Act 2025.
• It commenced on 1 May 2026, and most of what was promised in 2023 arrived.
• Two things changed materially: the court-readiness condition went, and tenants got protections the first bill never contained.

What happened to the 2023 Bill

The Renters (Reform) Bill was introduced on 17 May 2023. It did not complete its parliamentary stages before Parliament was dissolved in May 2024, and it fell.

After the election a second bill, the Renters' Rights Bill, was introduced. It built on the first, went further in several places, and became the Renters' Rights Act 2025. The main provisions took effect on 1 May 2026.

So the answer to "what does the Renters' Reform Bill mean for tenants" is now a question about a different piece of legislation. Here is how the promises actually landed.

Section 21: promised, delivered, and sooner than expected

What the 2023 Bill said. Section 21 no-fault eviction would be abolished. But the Conservative government attached a condition: the Lord Chancellor would first have to publish an assessment of the readiness of the county court possession system, and abolition would not happen until court reforms were in place. In practice that was an open-ended delay, and it was the single biggest criticism of the Bill at the time.

What happened. The court-readiness condition did not survive. Section 21 was abolished for all tenancies on a single date, 1 May 2026, with no precondition attached.

This is the change that matters most, and it is the one we were least confident about in 2023. A landlord now needs a specified ground for possession and has to prove it in court. Only a court order ends a tenancy and only county court bailiffs can remove anyone.

If you're served with an eviction notice.

Periodic tenancies: delivered

Then. Fixed terms would be replaced by rolling periodic tenancies, with two months' notice from the tenant.

Now. Exactly that. Every assured shorthold tenancy converted automatically to an assured periodic tenancy on 1 May 2026. No new agreement was needed, and no fee could be charged for one.

The practical effect is larger than it sounds: there is no renewal moment, no fixed term to be trapped inside, and no early termination fee. Staying or moving on.

Pets: delivered, with the money stripped out

Then. Tenants would get a right to request a pet that landlords could not unreasonably refuse. Crucially, the 2023 Bill also proposed letting landlords require pet damage insurance as a condition.

Now. The right to request survived, with a firm 28-day deadline for a written response, extendable by 7 days if the landlord asks for more detail. Refusal needs a fair reason, and GOV.UK gives examples of what is and isn't reasonable.

The insurance provision did not survive. It was dropped and never made it into the Act, so there is no compulsory pet insurance, no pet deposit and no pet rent. Damage still comes out of the ordinary deposit.

That is a better outcome for tenants than the 2023 Bill offered, and it went almost unremarked at the time. Asking your landlord about a pet.

The ombudsman and the portal: delivered, but not yet live

Then. A new ombudsman all private landlords would have to join, and a property portal listing landlords and their compliance.

Now. Both are in the Act. Both sit in the next implementation phase rather than the May 2026 commencement, with rollout expected from late 2026.

The Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman will be compulsory for all private landlords with assured tenancies, including those using a managing agent, and the government describes it as offering "quick, fair, impartial and binding resolution" with power to require an apology, compel information, order remedial action and award compensation.

The Private Rented Sector Database will require every private landlord to register and pay an annual fee.

Together they close the gap that has frustrated renters for years: a letting agent has always been answerable to a redress scheme, while a landlord letting directly answered to nobody short of a court. Until it is live, that gap is still open. What the Property Ombudsman does now.

What tenants got that the 2023 Bill never offered

This is the part worth dwelling on, because the second bill was not simply the first one re-tabled.

• Rental bidding banned. Landlords and agents must publish an asking rent and it is illegal to ask for or accept offers above it. Nothing like this was in the 2023 Bill.
• Rent in advance capped at one month. The demand for six months up front from anyone self-employed, a student or on benefits is gone.
• Rent increases limited to once a year, on two months' notice, on a prescribed form, none in the first twelve months, and challengeable free at tribunal. Rent review clauses in older agreements no longer take effect.
• Awaab's Law extended to the private sector, with statutory timescales for damp, mould and emergency hazards.
• Blanket bans on benefits and children made explicitly unlawful, in adverts as well as decisions.
• A higher arrears threshold. The mandatory possession ground moved from two months' arrears to three, with notice up from two weeks to four, and the arrears have to still be at that level at the hearing.

Every one of those is a tenant protection that simply did not exist in what we were writing about in May 2023.

What we got wrong, and what we'd still flag

We were too pessimistic about Section 21. The court-readiness condition looked at the time like a mechanism for indefinite delay, and plenty of people including us assumed abolition would slip for years. It didn't.

We were about right on timing overall. Three years from a bill's first reading to commencement is slow, and the ombudsman and database still aren't live.

What we would still flag now: none of this works if tenants don't use it. The tribunal route for challenging a rent increase is free and barely used. Rent repayment orders can return up to twelve months' rent and most tenants have never heard of them. Councils have enforcement powers that go unexercised because nobody reports anything.

Rights that go unclaimed are indistinguishable from rights that don't exist.

Where to read the current position

We have rewritten the whole guide library around the Act as it actually is:

• What the Act changed and when
• A tenant's guide to renting in England
• How often a landlord can raise the rent
• What to do about a rent increase

The point that hasn't changed since 2023

Legislation sets the floor. It tells you what a landlord must do. It cannot tell you what a particular landlord actually does when the boiler fails in December, or whether they'll find £400 of deductions in a flat you left spotless.

Only the last tenant knows that. That's why reviewing your landlord, agent, property and neighbourhood matters as much now as it did before the law changed. The Act made the rules better. Reviews are what make the market honest.