Landlord Law Essentials Part 1 - Landlord Responsibilities
Welcome to Part 1 of this e-course. We start off with an article which sets the scene for the rest of the series. You can navigate the articles in the course via the grey index blocks.
The responsibilities of being a landlord
Many people, when considering investing in property, think just of the return. They think about the financial and tax aspects.
But what they don’t always properly appreciate is that the property they are buying as an investment is going to be someone’s HOME.
A home is important. It is where you return to after a day’s work, where you keep all your things, where you (should) feel safe – your retreat from the world. People’s homes are important.
So, if you are in the business of providing homes for people (which is what being a landlord really is), then there are a lot of legal requirements you have to comply with. Quite rightly. So, for example:
- There are legal obligations to keep the property in proper repair
- There are health and safety standards you need to keep, for example, under the gas regulations,
- The contents need to comply with legal standards for example, under the furniture regulations,
- Increasingly, there is ‘consumer’ legislation to protect tenants / consumers against ‘unfairness’, and
- There are new rules being introduced by the Renters Rights Act 2025
Other consumer-facing services, such as the restaurant trade, food suppliers, health services and financial services are subject to stringent rules, regulation and enforcement action. It is only fair that those providing homes for consumers, an important service, should also be subject to rules regarding standards and tenants’ rights.
It’s no longer your property
Another point which landlords often totally fail to appreciate is that, technically, once it is let to a tenant, it’s not your property anymore! A tenancy is a legal ‘estate in land’. similar to a 99-year lease. So as long as the tenancy is in existence, your rights over the property are mostly just
- the right to receive rent and
- the right to get it back at the end of the tenancy (what lawyers call the reversion).
So, this is why you can’t just go in whenever you want. You lost the right to do this when the tenancy was created.
It does not mean that you have no rights at all! The terms and conditions in your tenancy agreement are still important. However if tenants fail to comply, you can only really enforce them by
- Court action (eg possession proceedings if a tenant fails to pay, or an injunction ordering them to let you in to carry out inspections such as the gas safety inspection), and
- Claiming for any losses suffered from the deposit when the tenant vacates
Most people will, however, respect the terms of a contract which they have signed and comply with it. It is important when choosing tenants that you choose someone who will do this.
The Covenant for Quiet Enjoyment
Not only is entering without permission a gross invasion of your tenants’ privacy, it is also a breach of what is called the ‘covenant of quiet enjoyment’.
This is the fundamental right of tenants to be able to live in the property in peace, without interference from their landlord.
True, landlords do have a limited right to access the property for inspections and in case of emergency, but this is subject to the tenants’ rights to keep them out under the covenant for quiet enjoyment.
So if you want to enter for a lawful purpose and the tenant won’t let you – this will put the tenant in breach of the law or the terms of his tenancy agreement (which can form the subject of a legal claim by you, for example, for an injunction). But you cannot go in.
Indeed, entering without the tenant’s permission will usually be considered harassment, which is a criminal offence.
Leading on from this, there are also strict rules about how a tenancy can end.
Unless a tenant leaves voluntarily, a landlord MUST get an order for possession using the proper procedure (described by lawyers as ‘due process’). Tenants can only be physically evicted by the court bailiffs or sheriffs after a possession order has been obtained.
Again, if you go in and change the locks, this is unlawful, and you can be prosecuted or (after 1 May 2026) fined by the Council and/or sued by your tenants for compensation. There have been cases where tenants have been awarded very substantial sums.
However, sadly, many cases of landlord harassment and poor behaviour have gone unpunished. Lets take a look at this
The problem with rogue and criminal landlords
Although there is and has been for long time, legislation in place regarding the proper condition of rented properties and tenants’ rights, for many years these have not been properly enforced. The main reasons for this are;
- That tenants were scared to do anything as landlords could evict them without reason under the no-fault section 21 eviction procedure, and
- Local Authorities (who are the main enforcing body) were underfunded (mostly due to austerity) and so did not have the staff to do this work. Because there is no legal obligation on them to do enforcement work, most Local Authorities took the decision not to do it.
As a result, rogue and criminal landlords have been left to operate unchecked, resulting in many properties being in a shocking condition with tenants’ rights being ignored with impunity.
This is bad, not only for the hapless tenants concerned but also for society. For example, the cost to the NHS of dealing with sickness caused by poor living conditions runs into many millions of pounds – money we all pay for through our taxes.
When the Starmer Labour government came into power in July 2024 they decided to do something about this. The result is the Renters Rights Act 2025 – the biggest change to Landlord and Tenant law for over 35 years.
The Renters Rights Act 2025
I will be discussing the new rules and the reasons for them as we go through this course, but here are a few of the objectives of the legislation:
- To encourage longer occupation of properties. Constant moving is bad for family life, in particular for children and their schooling
- To regularise rents. The actual or implied threat of a section 21 eviction has intimidated many tenants into accepting high rent increases, and initial rents were often pushed sky-high through ‘rental bidding’. Rent has been increasing at more than the rate of inflation for decades.
- To reduce the number of evictions. Many of those being evicted look to Local Authorities for rehousing. The cost of this is is astronomical and is pushing many Local Authorities towards section 114 notices – the Local Authority equivalent of bankruptcy
- To eliminate rogue landlords. Local Authorities are being given new and greater powers along with the legal obligation to use them
- To change the emphasis of the Private Rented Sector from being an investment opportunity for landlords to providing homes for tenants.
Find out more about the policy reasons behind the Act here and also here.
My Landlord Law Blog has many posts about the Renters Rights Act many written when it was still a bill.
What this means for you
Landlords need to be aware that although the penalties and fines are aimed at rogue and criminal landlords, this may not help you if you fail to comply with the rules yourself.
After all
- If you commit a road traffic offence, you will get your license endorsed and may be prosecuted.
- If a restaurant is found to have poor hygiene practices and contaminated food, they can expect to be prosecuted and may be closed down.
- If authorised personnel in the financial services sector commit financial crimes, they can face prosecution and imprisonment.
So if you are found to have breached the housing regulations, you too can be fined and may face prosecution. Local Authority Officers may agree to hold off if you are clearly not a rogue landlord and promise to comply in future. However, they may not.
After 1 May 2026 enforcement is going to be far more likely. It is important, therefore, that all landlords inform themselves of the new rules and take care to comply with them. This course will help.
Landlord Law members can find out more about Local Authority Enforcement and how to protect their position in my detailed guide here. Non members see here.
Don’t let this all put you off!
Many landlords are very upset by the changes, and in particular, the new enforcement powers being given to Local Authorities. However, so long as landlords comply with the legislation and look after their tenants and their properties, they should not suffer any problems.
As always, 100% compliance with the rules = 100% protection.
The majority of tenancies are entirely trouble-free. However, this is usually because the property is in tip-top condition and also because the landlord (or his agent) has taken the time and trouble to choose a suitable tenant.
Managing property can be time-consuming, some types more than others.
For example, renting out rooms in shared houses can take up a lot of time, but it can also be very lucrative. Many landlords enjoy managing their properties and the contact with different people and personalities.
The best landlords take a pride in providing quality accommodation with good service. They are usually rewarded for this by prompt rent payments and few voids.
If you take care to choose good tenants with a reasonable attitude, even if problems do arise, you will normally be able to sort them by agreement.
The ‘nightmare tenants’ of legend are very much in the minority. Although they do exist. When I was working as a solicitor doing eviction work, I saw a lot of them!
But the fact that your tenant is not behaving properly is not an excuse for you to do likewise. You need to make sure that you are complying with the law at all times. However,
Landlord responsibilities are constantly changing
Housing is important politically, and governments often introduce new regulations in response to problems that may arise, manifesto commitments (particularly with a new government) or as a result of a report they may have commissioned.
For example, over the past 20 years there have been new laws relating to
- houses in multiple occupation,
- tenancy deposits, and
- right to rent’ checks.
At this time, the Renters Rights Act is due to introduce massive changes for landlords. Most of these will come into force on 1 May 2026 with others coming along later.
So, you need to keep your landlord’s responsibilities under constant review.
This e-course will help. It contains basic background information about the main areas of landlord and tenant law and practice that you need to know about.
Here are some more suggestions for keeping yourself informed and up to date:
- Read my Landlord Law Blog regularly. Posts go online at least once a week and I try to cover all the issues that arise (or better still – why not sign up to get posts delivered to you by email?
- Sign up to the Landlord Law weekly news bulletin, which goes out via email every Tuesday morning
- Join my Landlord Law information service – this has a huge database of information on all aspects of being a residential landlord, which is regularly updated, plus it has tenancy agreements and forms
- Join a landlord’s association – they can be very helpful, and you can also learn a lot from talking to other landlords
- Subscribe to one or more of the landlord periodicals – they will also keep you up to date with new developments
- Make sure you do training reguarly. You should attend at least one professional training course per year.
Or better still, do all of them!
Landlords in Wales
As you will be aware, if you rent out property in Wales, Wales now has substantially different legislation, particularly since the coming into force of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 in December 2022.
Welsh landlords also need to register (and if they self-manage) be licensed with Rent Smart Wales.
This e-course is predominantly about the law in England. However, this e-course will still be useful for Welsh landlords as there are many similarities, plus some of the older legislation still applies.
I will be pointing out as we go through the course, where the differences lie. Note that Landlord Law members will find all our Welsh content here.
In the next part of this course we will look at the legal background.
There is an index to this course, but it is only visible to logged-in Landlord Law members.
If you want further information
About the issues raised in this article:
- Landlord Law members can post quick questions for me on the Members Discussion Forum (normally answered within 24 hours), or
- You can book a (pay extra) telephone advice call with one of our panel solicitors
- This is also open to non-members at a slightly higher price.
