The Landlord Law Market Rent and Tribunal Kit – Introduction
A practical guide to assessing market rents, proposing rent increases and dealing with tenant challenges.
This kit is principally intended for landlords of assured tenancies in England, UK.
However, Part 4 will contain separate guidance for landlords of common law tenancies and of protected and regulated tenancies who wish to apply for the registration or re-registration of a fair rent. Part 4 is currently in development and will be published soon.
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1. General Introduction
Setting the correct rent has become particularly important under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025.
Landlords must state a specific proposed rent when advertising a property and must not encourage or accept an offer above that figure. It is therefore important to assess the property’s open-market rent before it is advertised.
Once the tenancy has begun, the tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal during the first six months of the tenancy for a determination of the open-market rent. This means that landlords should retain evidence showing how the initial proposed rent was assessed.
The same principles apply when landlords subsequently wish to increase the rent.
The old rules and the new rules
Prior to 1 May 2026, when the rent-increase provisions of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force, landlords could generally increase the rent in one of three ways:
- By agreement with the tenant—often through a new tenancy agreement or renewal document;
- Under a rent-review clause in the tenancy agreement; or
- By using the statutory notice procedure under section 13 of the Housing Act 1988.
The Renters’ Rights Act abolished landlords’ ability to increase the rent by agreement or under a contractual rent-review clause. The statutory notice procedure is now the only method by which landlords of assured tenancies can increase the rent.
Before 1 May 2026, most landlords and their agents would increase the rent by asking tenants to sign a new tenancy agreement or renewal document when their fixed term ended. The abolition of fixed-term assured tenancies and the section 21 procedure means that this familiar method is no longer available.
So, landlords of assured periodic tenancies must now use the statutory rent-increase procedure. This involves serving the prescribed Form 4A. The tenant can then refer the proposed new rent to the First-tier Tribunal if they consider it to be above the open-market rent.
Although the statutory notice procedure has existed for many years, many landlords have never needed to use it and may be unfamiliar with its requirements.
This is why we have produced this kit.
2. About this Kit
This kit will help you
- Assess the open-market rent before advertising a property;
- Record and retain evidence supporting the initial proposed rent;
- Assess the appropriate rent for an existing tenancy;
- Inspect and evaluate the property;
- Find and compare suitable comparable properties;
- Decide what rent the available evidence supports;
- Check the statutory time limits;
- Complete and serve Form 4A correctly; and
- Respond if the tenant refers either the initial rent or a proposed rent increase to the First-tier Tribunal.
The tribunal does not decide whether the percentage increase proposed by the landlord is reasonable or whether the landlord needs a higher rent. Its task is to determine the rent at which the property could reasonably be expected to be let on the open market, applying the statutory assumptions and disregards.
This means that landlords should assess the evidence first and decide what rent to propose afterwards.
This kit will explain what evidence should be obtained and retained at every stage.
3. Who is this kit for?
Most of this kit is intended for private landlords of assured tenancies in England, UK. It will also be useful for letting agents.
Part 4 contains separate guidance for landlords of protected and regulated tenancies who wish to apply for the registration or re-registration of a fair rent under the Rent Act 1977. There will also be guidance for landlords of common law/unregulated tenancies.
The kit does not cover the different rent regimes applying to:
- Assured agricultural occupancies;
- Social housing tenancies;
- Company lets;
- Holiday lettings;
- Business tenancies; or
- Residential licences and other arrangements which are not tenancies.
If you are uncertain about the legal status of your tenancy, you should establish this before relying on the kit. For example, by using our Tenancy Trail.
4. An ongoing task
If you are a landlord of an assured periodic tenancy (which most landlords are), assessing the rent and preparing for the new rent should be an ongoing task.
However nice your tenants are, you can never be sure that they will not challenge your rent to the tribunal. This means that you always need to be prepared for this and to be able to prove that your rent, or your new rent if you have just served a Form 4A, reflects the proper market rent for the property.
Even after the deadline for your tenants to challenge your rent has passed, you should be on the lookout for property rents which are comparable to yours, which you can use to assess your next rent.
Rents should be increased regularly every year. If you do this, then the increases will be small and more affordable for your tenants and so less likely to be challenged by them.
This is an important new task for landlords, but an essential one if you are to avoid tribunal challenges and (if your rent is challenged) be able to uphold and justify the rent you have set.
If you take care over the rents that you set and only increase rents by small, affordable amounts every year (rather than large increases, say every five to ten years), you are less likely to have your rent challenged by your tenants.
In this way, you will also be able to keep pace with inflation, which will ensure that your property remains profitable.
5 Using the Kit
This kit is divided into
- Part 1: Assessing and deciding the market rent, serving your Form 4A
- Part 2: Responding to your tenant’s application
- Part 3: The Tribunal determination
- Part 4: Common law rents and fair rents for protected and regulated tenancies (not yet available)
- Part 5: Resources, including tribunal case reports, all the kit downloads, government guidance, and a list of online market rent tools.
How to use this kit:
Landlords of APTs should ideally read the whole of this kit (apart from Part 4) before deciding on your rent or drafting your Form 4A. Although if you are looking to increase a fair rent you only need to read part 4.
To navigate through the kit
Use the main menu sections above to jump to the main parts. Click the next and back buttons at the bottom to move through the kit. Find individual sections using the menu box.
Although this kit can be viewed on mobile devices, you may find it easier to use on a desktop or laptop computer.
This introduction is open access. To read the rest of this kit you need to be a logged-in Landlord Law member.
If you can read this text, you are not logged in!
- General Introduction
- 1.1 Is the statutory notice procedure available?
- 1.2 Understanding the open market rent
- 1.3 Inspecting and assessing your property
- 1.4 Finding suitable comparable properties
- 1.5 Comparing the evidence and deciding on the proposed rent
- 1.6 Checking and completing your Form 4A
- 1.7 Serving your Form 4A
- 2.1 You have received a tribunal application – what do you do?
- 2.2 Understanding the tenant’s application
- 2.3 Should you negotiate with the tenant?
- 2.4 Completing the Form MR2
- 2.5 What happens after Form MR2 is submitted
- 2.6 Tribunal Hearings – preparation
- 2.7 Tribunal Hearings – attending the hearing
- 2.8 The Tribunal’s Decision
This part is still in development.
