NEWS

Renters' Rights Act: What's Changed for Overseas Landlords

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force in England on 1 May 2026. It is the most significant overhaul of the private rented sector since the Housing Act 1988, and it applies to overseas landlords on the same basis as UK-resident landlords. If you let a property in England from abroad, the rules you operated under last week are not the rules you operate under this week.

Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

Some Buy to Let mortgages & House in Multiple Occupation mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

05 May 2026

Below is what changed, what you need to do this month, and what this means for anyone planning a buy-to-let purchase or remortgage from overseas.

What changed on 1 May 2026

The single biggest change is that all existing assured shorthold tenancies in England converted automatically to assured periodic tenancies on 1 May 2026. Fixed terms ended overnight. Section 21 no-fault evictions are abolished. Tenants can now end the tenancy at any time with two months’ notice. Landlords can only end a tenancy by relying on one of the statutory grounds in Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988.

Other changes that took effect the same day:

Rent increases are limited to once every 12 months, served via the statutory Section 13 process, with two months’ notice
A pet request must be considered within 28 days and cannot be unreasonably refused
Rental discrimination on grounds of children or benefits is prohibited
Bidding wars are banned, and any written advert must show the asking price
For new tenancies, no more than one month’s rent in advance can be required

Tenancies above £100,000 a year in rent, lodger arrangements, leases to companies, and tenancies regulated by the Rent Act 1977 are not caught by the new regime.

The 31 May 2026 Information Sheet deadline

If you had an assured shorthold tenancy in place before 1 May 2026, you must serve the government’s Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 on every tenant named on the agreement by 31 May 2026. The civil penalty for non-compliance is up to £7,000 per property. Email is sufficient if you attach the PDF directly. Linking to it does not count.

If your property is managed by a UK letting agent, the agent must serve the Information Sheet on your behalf, and many will already have done so. If you self-manage from overseas, this is your priority job for May. Diary it, send the PDF as an attachment, keep the date and method on file.

How possession has changed

Section 21 is gone. To recover possession of a property, an overseas landlord now relies on one of the statutory Section 8 grounds. The two that matter most for a typical expat investor:

Selling the property (Ground 1A). Four months’ notice. Cannot be used inside the first 12 months of the tenancy. After serving on this ground, the property cannot be re-let for 12 months.
Serious rent arrears (Ground 8). The threshold for mandatory possession has risen from two months to three months of arrears.

The practical implication for a landlord based abroad is timing. Notice periods are longer and the courts remain the only route to enforce a contested possession. A first missed rent payment is no longer a minor admin issue, it is the start of a clock you will want a UK agent monitoring weekly.

New rent increase rules

Rent can still rise to market level. The change is process. Only one increase in any 12-month period, served via the statutory Section 13 notice using the new Form 4A, with two months’ notice to the tenant. Contractual rent review clauses written into existing tenancy agreements are now unenforceable. CPI or RPI indexation clauses are void. Any rent increase that was agreed before 1 May 2026 under a contractual review clause but takes effect after that date is not permitted.

For overseas landlords running portfolios on different review cycles, the simplest approach is to align all annual reviews with a single calendar month and let the agent handle the Form 4A service.

Phase 2: the landlord database, late 2026

The Renters’ Rights Act rolls out in three phases. Phase 1 is what came into force on 1 May. Phase 2 is scheduled for late 2026 and includes a Private Rented Sector Landlord Database. Every landlord must register themselves and each rental property they own. A letting agent cannot complete this on the landlord’s behalf. Phase 2 also introduces a mandatory PRS Landlord Ombudsman to handle tenant complaints outside the courts.

Phase 3, scheduled for the early 2030s, brings the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law into the private rented sector and is expected to align with the proposed minimum EPC C requirement on lets.

What this means for buy-to-let mortgage planning

For overseas-based investors with UK buy-to-let mortgages, three points matter going into the rest of 2026.

First, longer possession timelines and the loss of Section 21 are now part of how lenders assess risk. No major specialist lender has withdrawn from the expat or non-resident BTL market in response, but underwriting around vacancy recovery, tenant arrears process, and management arrangements can be expected to tighten incrementally.

Second, compliance costs are rising. The Information Sheet, the database registration in late 2026, and the longer-term EPC and Decent Homes obligations are all real numbers in the gross-to-net rental yield calculation. Lenders factor those into the rental affordability picture.

Third, anyone with a fixed rate maturing in the next six to twelve months should be planning the remortgage now rather than at expiry. The reasons are unrelated to the Renters’ Rights Act, but the Act has prompted a wave of paperwork that overseas landlords are unwise to combine with a last-minute remortgage application.

Common questions

Does the Act apply to my Scottish property?

No. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 applies to England only. Scotland operates under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025, which is a separate regime.

I am an expat with one rental property managed by an agent. What do I actually need to do?

Confirm in writing with your agent that the Information Sheet has been served on your tenants by 31 May 2026, and ask them to send you a dated copy of the email and PDF. Next, prepare for personal database registration in late 2026. Your agent will brief you when the timing is confirmed.

Can I still use a fixed term?

No. From 1 May 2026, all assured tenancies are periodic. Existing fixed terms ended on the commencement date. Attempting to enforce a fixed term clause carries a civil penalty under new Section 16E of the Housing Act 1988.

Will lenders pull back from non-resident BTL because of this?

No major lender has withdrawn from the non-resident or expat BTL market specifically because of the Act. Pricing and criteria are moving for other reasons, including swap rate volatility and PRA risk-appetite limits. The Act is a factor in underwriting, not a threshold change in lender willingness.

If you are an overseas-based landlord planning a UK buy-to-let purchase or a remortgage in 2026, we can take you through how the new framework affects the case before you put an application in.

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