Phase One of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026. More is due before the year is out.
If you let a property in North West London, it’s easy to lose track of what’s genuinely required right now, as opposed to what’s coming later. Here’s the plain-English version.
The paperwork that hasn’t changed
Three documents have been part of letting for years, and they still are.
Gas Safety Certificate (CP12). Annual, carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer, covering the gas appliances and flues you provide. Your tenant gets a copy.
EICR. An electrical installation condition report on the fixed wiring, at least every five years, by a qualified electrician. If it comes back unsatisfactory, the remedial work has to be done within 28 days — or sooner if the report says so — and you must give the tenant and the council written confirmation once it’s finished.
EPC. A valid energy performance certificate for the property.
None of that is new. What’s changing is how visible it’s all about to become.
Alarms
Two straightforward requirements that are easy to get wrong in an older house:
- A working smoke alarm on every storey with a room used as living accommodation
- A carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation that contains a fixed combustion appliance — a boiler, a gas fire, a wood burner. Gas cookers are excluded
Worth confirming at the start of a tenancy, and worth checking they’re still working when you inspect. On a typical NW London terrace or a flat spread over three floors, it’s working out which storeys count that catches people out rather than the alarms themselves.
What actually changed on 1 May 2026
Phase One is already in force. The main points:
- Section 21 “no fault” evictions are abolished — possession now runs through Section 8 grounds
- Fixed terms are replaced by rolling assured periodic tenancies
- Rent can be increased once a year only, using a section 13 notice on Form 4A (this replaced the old Form 4 on 1 May 2026), with two months’ notice. Tenants can challenge the proposed rent at the First-tier Tribunal
- Rental bidding is banned
- A maximum of one month’s rent can be taken in advance
- Tenants can request a pet, and you have 28 days to respond
Most of that is about how tenancies run rather than the fabric of the building. But it shifts the balance. If ending a tenancy is harder, then keeping the property in good order — and the relationship steady — matters more than it used to.
What’s coming later in 2026
Phase Two starts the rollout of the national landlord database, with landlords required to register. A landlord ombudsman is also on the way, but membership isn’t expected to become mandatory until 2028.
The database is the part worth preparing for. Registration is expected to cover your Gas Safety Certificate, EICR and EPC details, so it becomes a good deal harder to be quietly out of date.
If your certificates are scattered across old emails, a previous agent and a folder somewhere, this is a sensible moment to pull them into one place and write down the expiry dates.
What’s further out
Three things worth having on your radar rather than your to-do list.
EPC C by 1 October 2030. Privately rented properties will need to reach EPC C or equivalent, with exemptions — including a cost cap of £10,000 per property, or 10% of value for lower-value homes. If yours currently sits at D or below, it’s worth understanding now what would actually move it — insulation, heating, glazing — so you can fold that work into something you were doing anyway, rather than rushing it in 2029.
Awaab’s Law extended to the private rented sector. This sets legally enforceable timeframes for fixing serious hazards, with damp and mould the obvious example. In practice it rewards landlords who deal with the cause early: the leaking gutter, the failed seal round the bath, the bathroom with no working extractor. Painting over it was never a fix, and it’s about to be far less defensible.
A Decent Homes Standard for the private rented sector has been proposed for the 2030s.
Getting ahead rather than scrambling
Taken in order, none of this is dramatic. A comfortable position to be in before the end of the year looks like this:
- Gas Safety Certificate in date, with the renewal already in your calendar
- EICR in date, and any remedial work genuinely completed and signed off
- A valid EPC, plus a rough idea of what would take it to C
- Alarms present, working, and on every storey
- All of it saved in one place, ready for registration
- Damp, leaks and ventilation dealt with properly rather than covered over
That last one is the one landlords tend to underestimate. Damp and mould are where the rules are tightening most clearly, and they’re also the problems that get cheaper the earlier you catch them. A blocked gutter sorted this autumn is a very different bill from a wet wall in two years’ time.
Timing helps too. Certificates, servicing and remedial work are far easier to arrange between tenancies than in the week something expires.
One honest caveat
Rules in this area are moving quickly, and the detail of the later phases can still shift. Treat this as a plain-English overview rather than legal advice, and check the current position — or take proper advice — before acting on anything specific to your property.
If you’d rather not chase all this yourself
We look after gas and electrical safety checks, damp and the repairs that come out of them, for landlords across North West London and the Home Counties.
Send us a photo through our Get a quote page or give us a ring on 07872 606019, and we’ll tell you what’s in date, what isn’t, and what’s worth booking now.
