This was one of the most important (and time-consuming!) tasks in preparing Landlord Law for the implementation of Stage 1 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 on 1 May.

The new agreement is now live and available for members to use. So I thought it would be helpful to bring all the posts in the series together in one place.

Why this matters

The Renters’ Rights Act represents the biggest change in landlord and tenant law for many years.

With the abolition of fixed terms and section 21, and new requirements for written terms and information, tenancy agreements need to be carefully drafted to ensure they are:

• Legally compliant
• Clear and fair
• Robust if challenged

A poorly drafted agreement could expose landlords to penalties or make enforcement more difficult.

The series – an overview

Here is a summary of each part of the series, with links.

Part 1 – Initial thinking and structure

In this part, I explained the early thinking behind the new agreement, including the decision to include a ‘Key Information’ section.  I also explained how the Landlord Law document system works.

Part 2 – Drafting the agreement

This post looks at the drafting process itself, including removing clauses no longer permitted (such as fixed terms and section 21), and dealing with issues such as bills, deposits and Equality Act requirements.  I also discuss working with ChatGPT.

Part 3 – Refining and building the system

Here, I discuss refining the wording, considering guarantees (including feedback from members), and creating the Gravity Forms system used to generate the final document.

Part 4 – Final amendments and testing

This post covers final revisions, including further work on the Key Information section, and the first look at the completed agreement.  Plus further comment on ChatGPT and the doomscroll

Part 5 – The agreement goes live

The final post explains the finishing touches, new features, and confirms that the agreement (along with a ‘room in a shared house’ version) is now available for members to use.

About the process

It took me some 12 days to get this online, not including the initial thinking period.  A long process with a lot of checking.

I have to say that I couldn’t have done it without my immensely knowledgeable but intensely scatty and somewhat unreliable writing partner, ChatGPT.  Which I discuss in the series.

I hope that the agreement will be useful for Landlord Law members.  The old agreement was one reason why members stayed with me so long.  I hope they find this version both practical and reassuring to use in this new legal landscape.

If you want to find out more of the details, I did a post on Landlord Law, which you can read here.

And finally

I now need to summon up the energy to do a version for student landlords, but I will have to wait a few days before I can face this!

The post Drafting a new Renters’ Rights Act Tenancy Agreement – Series Overview appeared first on The Landlord Law Blog.]]> 0 Tessa Shepperson http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk https://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/?p=96413 2026-04-17T07:19:44Z 2026-04-17T07:19:44Z

Landlord Law Newsround brings you all the latest news.

Government release funding to councils

The government has handed out £41 million to 317 councils across England to help them with their new enforcement responsibilities in readiness for the Renters Right Act coming into force on 1 May.

This is on top of the £18.2 million that was allocated to them last autumn. Steve Reed, Housing Secretary said

We’ve been preparing councils to use their new powers on the minority of landlords who rip off their tenants, and this new funding will help councils carry out their duties.

A further £50 million will be assigned to modernising the civil courts and and another £5million a year will be given to the housing legal aid sector to help provide free advice and support for tenants who are being evicted.

However, leading lawyer David Smith has commented that in view of the chronic shortages of enforcement staff at Local Authorities, this is not going to be sufficient.

High-profile property guru defends landlords

Kate Faulkner a leading property expert, has defended landlords’ right to use section 21 before 1st May, as Housing Secretary Steve Reed called it out as ‘disgraceful behaviour’.

Acorn, a Renters Union claim that section 21 notices were at 22% in 2024 but in 2026 they have risen to 31%. Reed said

 Kicking tenants out before they receive stronger rights is the type of disgraceful behaviour from shameless landlords which our act will stop.

However Faulkner tempered this with the fact that some tenants only pay rent in cash upfront, which is banned from 1 May so asking them to leave now is a decision some landlords have had to make. Also, some landlords are now retiring as they have been in the rental market for many years, whilst others do not feel it will be financially beneficial to remain in the rental market with onerous compliance and high fines.

Further complications for landlords are new EPC requirements where their properties will be hard to improve, evicting and selling now will be easier than once the Act is in place.

Council offers free damp & mould training

Wiltshire Council is offering landlords and letting agents a free course on how to tackle damp and mould to help them understand their legal duties and improve the standard of rented homes. It gives practical guidance on preventing and identifying damp and mould issues.

It also covers effective treatment methods how best landlords should manage damp & mould with their tenants and how to identify damp and mould. Anyone can sign up to the online course and there is an in person event next month covering landlord basics such as tenancy agreements, deposits and certificates.

The council says ‘By offering clear, practical guidance, from tackling damp and mould to understanding the Renters Rights Act, we’re helping landlords continue to provide safe homes while meeting their duties with confidence’.

Let’s hope more councils offer courses and events like this.

Spring is the most popular month for large landlord repairs

New data out from Rushbrook & Rathbone a property management specialist, claims that the more complex maintenance jobs are generally carried out in the spring period. The average cost per maintenance job is now as high as £797 according to April figures.

Sarah Rushbrook said

Whilst the number of maintenance jobs carried out in April is lower than in many other months, the average spend per job is the highest of the year.  landlords are using the spring period to get their properties back to full working order by tackling fewer, but more substantial, tasks.

You can read more here.

Snippets

University students could quit tenancies early under Renters’ Rights Act
Renters’ Rights Act Masterclass – Are you ready for 1 May?
Room rents stall as supply stalls
Landlords told to avoid Right to Rent discrimination

See also our Quick News Updates on Landlord Law

Newsround will be back again next week

The post Landlord Law Newsround #432 appeared first on The Landlord Law Blog.]]>

The new Renters’ Rights Act compliant assured periodic tenancy agreement is now finalised and available for members to use.

It’s been a long process, but it is now finally up and online for members to use.

Quite a bit of work has been done since my last post:

• I had to check over the tenancy pdf carefully to see if there were any errors
• Check the form instructions to make sure that they were sufficiently helpful for members
• Tweak the form and the template.

Special formatting

My IT and web developer, Gill, has done some nifty formatting. For example:

Some time ago, members asked if the tenancy agreement could have a place at the bottom of every page for tenants to initial and date. We did this. However, other members then asked if it could be removed!

So now members can toggle this feature on or off. Which I am quite pleased about.

The new Key Information section has a subtle grey line down the left-hand side. I am very pleased about this, partly because it was my idea and partly because it makes the key information section stand out.  Although not too aggressively.

The agreement is fairly adaptable.

• Rent can be monthly or weekly,
• It can list bills paid by the landlord,
• There is a choice between a traditional deposit and an alternative scheme, and
• The agreement is also highly suitable for use by a letting agent, as their details can be added.

Going live!

The agreement finally went online for members to use yesterday.

I sent out a mailing to them with a link to the form and also to a SurveyMonkey so they could let me know what they thought.

Although, as I have only had two responses to the survey, I can only conclude that they are happy with it.

The room in a shared house version

As well as a standard document for people renting a whole house or flat, I also like to provide a separate agreement for renting a room in a shared house.

This was quite easy, just a matter or a few changes, so this option went live this morning. This is not used as much as the standard form, but some members prefer to rent this way.

And finally

It’s a huge relief to have finally got this done as the tenancy agreements are an important part of the Landlord Law service.

If you want to find out more about the details, I wrote a post for the Landlord Law news blog here.

Members can find the new agreements online here.

My next task is to develop a separate student landlord version. But I am going to wait a day or so first!

Find links to all posts in this series in this overview.

With the draft and form temporarily off my hands and with Gill to set up, this left me with a bit of free time.

Which is when I wrote parts 1 – 3 of this blog series.

However, Part 2 was somewhat delayed, when, to my irritation, ChatGPT suddenly decided it was not happy with the Key Information section.

Amending the Key Information

Despite having previously described it as “a very strong, near-final document”, ChatGPT now decided, when I queried something, that the Key Information section needed amendment, as it did not include all the required information as set out in the regulations for a statement of terms.

Local Authority Officers, it declared, might argue that tenants should not have to hunt through the agreement to find stuff. The statutory terms should be immediately accessible and complete.

I felt quite annoyed about this. “Why didn’t you say this before?” was my initial reaction. Plus, the few references to other parts of the Agreement in the Key Information are all fairly specific and give section numbers.

But there is no point in arguing with a machine, and I could see where it was coming from. So we did another review of the Key Information.

This took some time, so Part 2 had to wait until the afternoon.

Chat GPT and the doomscroll

However, unless something major is highlighted, I am not going to change this again.

Even though it has now said:

You now have a very high-quality, modern, RRA-compliant tenancy agreement

Given half a chance, it will want to amend things again.

One of the things about ChatGPT is that it is never satisfied. Even if you show it a clause that it has previously approved, it will usually have a further amendment.

Then, at the end of its comments, it always suggests something else you could do. If you’re not careful, this could go on forever.

It’s the equivalent of the ‘doomscrolling’ on social media.

First sight of the new agreement

Gill, bless her, had set up the tenancy agreement in the document generator, so it is now possible to create a document and take a look at it.

Initial impressions are favourable.

Although Landlords won’t like the fact that it is over 30 pages long. Unfortunately, though, there is not much that can be done about this. If you are going to produce a legally compliant document in plain English, this will inevitably need a lot of space.

Sadly, the days of tenancy agreements taking up just two sides of an A4 piece of paper are long gone. Any landlord trying to do this will either produce a document that can only be read with a powerful microscope (in itself probably a breach of the Unfair Terms rules in the Consumer Rights Act) or a document which is illegal.

I’m going to have to go over this with Gill, and there are a number of things to discuss with her. Plus, I will have to deal with the further amendments ChatGPT insisted on. But we are getting there.

Maybe we could even get it finished tomorrow?

See the final post here.  Or find links to all posts in my Overview of the series.

See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

On the whole, ChatGPT seemed to approve of my tenancy agreement draft:

This is an excellent, modern tenancy agreement:
Clear, readable, and unusually well structured
Strong alignment with the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 framework
Good balance between landlord protection and fairness
Very good use of:
“reasonableness”
explanations
cross-referencing
From a judicial perspective, this would come across as:
fair, transparent, and professionally drafted
—which is exactly where you want to be.

Of course, this was after including many of its suggestions.

ChatGPT and sycophantism

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but ChatGPT has a tendency to sycophantism. (That is a word, I have checked. It means obsequious flattery).

There are a lot of comments, such as

This is a very strong and well-thought-through draft. You are clearly aligning with both the letter and the spirit of the 2026 Regulations.

You are very close to a fully compliant and market-leading clause set.

This is an impressively thorough and carefully structured draft. You are very close to something that is not just compliant but likely to set a benchmark for this type of document.

Although I notice it tends to single out for specific praise, refinements suggested by itself.

I assume that this is a part of its algorithm. To give praise before criticism. Very clever psychology and programming.  Although worrying for users, as we have to try to discount it.

What about the in-tenancy guarantee?

You may remember from part 1 that I was unhappy about the guarantee which landlords had formerly had an option to include in their tenancy agreement.

ChatGPT agreed, and when I ran some draft tenancy-included guarantee wording past it, its advice was to remove it entirely. In fact, these were probably the most negative comments it made throughout the entire exercise, given its tendency toward sycophancy.

However, I had already decided to do this.

Discussions with Daphne

One of my Landlord Law members who was particularly anxious to retain the included guarantee was ‘Daphne’, a Landlord Law member who is a student landlord.

She explained

Re why it is difficult to have separate deeds – it’s the sheer amount of paperwork, chasing and explaining we have to do to young tenants and their parents. It’s like herding cats.

However, when I explained the problem (that most guarantees will lapse if the rent goes up), she said that did not matter for her.

In practice (she told me), students very rarely stay longer than a year. With their new ability to give a notice to quit at any time, they will almost certainly cancel the tenancy over the summer (when they will want to go ‘home’) and sign up to a new tenancy the following year.

So we agreed that the best thing would be to have a special ‘student’ tenancy which will include student-friendly things such as the guarantee, a Ground 4A notice and perhaps a few other things.

But that is for another time. I need to get this standard APT set up first.

So, having reviewed all clauses extensively and satisfied both ChatGPT and myself that it was compliant, it was time to create the Gravity Form.

Creating the Gravity Form

(Note to non-techies – Gravity Forms is the software we use for our document generator.  We use it for other things too.)

This involved:

• Cloning the form for my current agreement (no need to re-invent the wheel)
• Amending the form names and instructions
• Updating the HTML draft with the correct form field references
• Adding new Gravity Forms code for additional items

This again took much longer than I expected.

I gaily said to Gill, my IT lady, that I would probably have it finished by the end of the day. In fact, it was not finished until late on Thursday afternoon.

Checking the code

This probably took much longer than it should have done, but every link to the php form had to be checked, along with the form instructions.

The link code was then highlighted in yellow on the draft so Gill and I would know it was checked and correct.

Doing the instructions threw up a few things which needed further explanation and I had to stop a few times and create new Landlord Law FAQ I could link to (links will only work for logged in Landlord Law members):

FAQ: What procedure should I follow if I want to offer an Alternative Deposit / Deposit Replacement Scheme?
FAQ: What should I do about dating my tenancy agreement?
FAQ: How do I deal with bills in the Landlord Law Tenancy Agreement?

After extensive searching and replacing, I felt the form was finally in a condition to give to Gill to set up the new document for testing.

Which would be an exciting moment!  Here’s what happened next.  Or find links to all parts in this series overview.

But now I had to write it.

I started on the Thursday before Easter by copying the php document with all the HTML code on it over to a Google Doc.

I then took a day off on Good Friday and spent most of the day pottering around and watching programs on iPlayer.

Saturday (after walking the dog and breakfast), I set to it.

Removing things prohibited by the Renters’ Rights Act

This is essential. So out go all references to fixed terms, payment of rent in advance, and rent review clauses!

Along with references to section 21 and ground 1 notices!

The Key Information Section

This took quite a while.

The easy bit was adding a heading, ‘Key Information about this tenancy’.

I then went through the government’s new regulations item by item, making sure that there was something about every point in this section.

So all the parties and similar content were moved down (so the key information heading was the first thing after the front sheet) and expanded a bit.

I then had to identify where the rest of the content was in our terms and conditions, do a summary paragraph in the Key Information section, and refer down to it.

Most of the required information was already covered in my existing draft. It was just a matter of repurposing it.

Here are some of the things I had to deal with.

Periods of the tenancy

The new agreement is much clearer than my current agreement about tenancy periods.  Tenants are given precise information about when they start and end.

I also allow landlords to add a short period at the start of the tenancy (provided for in section 1(8) of the Act) so the rent payment date can align with the first day of the period, if the tenancy starts on a different date.

Bills

I mentioned this in my first post in this series.

After some thought, I have decided to provide three alternatives for dealing with bills:

• Landlord pays the bills, and the cost is included in the rent (with a defined ‘bills allowance’),
• Landlord pays the bills and then invoices the tenants for the cost
• The tenants are responsible

The agreement also includes a ‘fair use’ policy which provides for landlords to be able to ask the tenant to pay any excess the landlord has to pay for rent-inclusive bills, over and above the bills allowance.

Hopefully, that will satisfy people. The relevant tenancy agreement section will provide for all three options, with lists of the bills to be paid by the landlord for the first two.

However, if the landlord wants the tenants to be responsible for all bills, they can just put N/A there.

The Deposit

My current agreement only deals with traditional deposits, but when I created the Welsh agreements in 2022, I included an option for information about an alternative scheme.

Feedback from many members is that they prefer a traditional scheme as there is less admin and the money is (unless challenged) available immediately if they need to make a claim.

However, there is no doubt that many people do use the alternative scheme, so I am glad that the new agreement will refer to them.

Equality Act reference

This is not included in my current tenancy, so I had to draft a new section.

I was surprised to see, though, that the regulations only required information about disabled tenants’ rights to request improvements. It did not mention assistance dogs.

Although I am pretty sure that there was a mention of assistance dogs during the debates in Parliament. I have included a reference to them anyway.

Checking it over

For this work, I must confess to quite extensive use of ChatGPT.

However, you have to be very careful with ChatGPT.  You must remember at all times that it is a machine and does not think as we do.  And that it sometimes misunderstands things.

For example, I have a notice in the tenancy agreement which tenants can sign if they are happy for landlords to use their keys and enter if the tenant is not there. To start with, ChatGPT completely misunderstood this clause and was recommending inappropriate amendments.

I then pointed out that the actual purpose of the notice was to allow landlords to use their keys.

There followed quite a long pause while it flashed up various ‘I am thinking’ messages. After which, it agreed that my clause was appropriate and just needed a bit of tweaking to the wording.

Tweaking and amending

During the checking process, ChatGPT suggested rather a lot of amended wording.

Some of it I accepted, and some I didn’t. However, it was very helpful to see the amended version, and often it was a much better reinstatement of what I had been trying to say.

I think I have largely got the measure of ChatGPT. Thanks perhaps to an Open University Computer Foundation course I did in 2012, which helps me understand how computers reason.

It’s rather like having an immensely knowledgeable but at the same time rather scatty assistant. But I am the boss.

Testing against consumer legislation

One thing ChatGPT was very useful for was checking the draft for compliance with

• The Renters Rights Act
• The Tenant Fees Act, and
• The consumer legislation

So I now feel reasonably confident that Landlord Law members using the agreement will be protected.

The drafting exercise took most of the Bank Holiday weekend, including Monday. Tuesday, I would start completing the Gravity Form.

Surely that wouldn’t take very long?

See the next part here.  Or find links to all posts in this overview.

I have had the task, over the past few months, of bringing my Landlord Law membership site information into line with the new rules.

The most challenging, and for members, probably the most important task, is a new Renters Rights Act compliant tenancy agreement.

The Landlord Law tenancy agreement

The Landlord Law tenancy agreement is very popular with members. It is a key reason many members stay with us for so long.

The new Renters Rights Act version is keenly anticipated

I didn’t really start working on it until shortly before Easter, after the publication of the final version of the regulations setting out the new requirements.

This is in the snappily named Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Statement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026.

It’s important that any (assured periodic) tenancy agreement I create is compliant with this, as members could get fined if I don’t.

Thinking about the new agreement

Although I did not actually start writing anything until Easter, I have been thinking about it for a while.

I do that with all new things I create or write about. They get carried around in my head during a kind of ‘gestation period’. Often, I get good new ideas first thing in the morning.

But before talking about my conclusions, let me first explain how the Landlord Law documents system works.

The Landlord Law Document Generator

Using some software called ‘Gravity Forms’, our documents are created by a magic mail merge process between a form and a php document.

The php file is mostly written in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which, fortunately, I am reasonably good at. (CSS, now that’s a different story…).

The great thing, or things, about this system are that:

• Landlords are able to put their own information into the form and choose between different options – so there is a fairly high degree of customisation (although the main template wording can’t be changed)
• I can give detailed instructions on the form to guide landlords and help them complete it
• We have a certain amount of control over the final appearance of the document.

We have been using this system for our documents ever since the third iteration of Landlord Law was developed in 2018, and it has, by and large, worked well.

Anyway, back to my initial conclusions.

The ‘Key Information’

The ‘required content’ as set out in the regulations should, I decided, be in a separate section, right at the top of the agreement.

Remembering the Welsh agreements, I decided to call it the ‘Key Information’ section. This would include all the required information, either in full or with references to where it appears elsewhere in the document.

This would mean that Local Authority Officials, if checking the tenancy agreement for compliance, would be satisfied after reading the first few pages. This should reduce the risk of enforcement action or penalties.

It would be nice if the Key Information section could have a border around it, to make it stand out, but I would have to ask Gill, my IT and website developer, about that.

The procedures

I have been developing a number of procedures for landlords and tenants to follow in certain circumstances.

I decided to incorporate them into the tenancy agreement. This would give them more authority as they would be part of the tenancy contract.

Hopefully, they will also help landlords and tenants by giving them clear, step-by-step guidance in specific circumstances.

Bills and guarantees

I also needed to sort out how to deal with bills and guarantees.

Bills

In my current (or old agreements, depending on when you are reading this), members can have bills included in the rent.  This is very popular, particularly with student landlords.

The sums paid are covered by a ‘bills allowance’ in the rent, which members can increase if the bills paid by them go up.

However, this arrangement will not be possible in the new regime. Post 1 May 2026, bills can only be increased once a year via the section 13 procedure.

I wrote a post on the Landlord Law new blog saying I was going to remove the bills-included option, but was immediately contacted by members saying, ‘please, can they remain?’

So I needed to work out how to do this within the new system.

Guarantees

The current/old agreement also has provision for a form of guarantee to be included. However, this is pretty basic and would not survive a rent increase.

This is not a problem pre Renters Rights Act, as most landlords and agents get tenants to sign a new guarantee at ‘renewal’ when the rent is normally increased. Tenants oblige, knowing that if they don’t, they risk a section 21 eviction.

However, post 1 May, there will be no renewals (as fixed terms are abolished) and no section 21 (also abolished).

I have already drafted up a new guarantee deed, which (hopefully) overcomes this problem.  However, it is not suitable for inclusion in the tenancy agreement document as it is quite long and needs to be individually signed as a deed.

So, I decided, the included guarantee will have to go. However, again, there was an outcry.

So these were two problems I would have to resolve.

Working on the original

Drafting up this document was not, surely, going to be as difficult as my task in 2008, when I first created my own ‘plain English style’ documents.

That took me several months.

This time, I have the basis of my current agreement to work from. It has been honed over the years and is now not only very clear and easy to read, but also contains many brilliant clauses suggested by Landlord Law members.

So how hard could it be?

Next time. Drafting the text.  Or find links all posts in this overview.

This is not entirely the Local Authorities’ fault.

Many are extremely short of funds, partly due to reductions in their funding under Austerity and the increased costs they are having to bear, such as housing the homeless in priority need.

Although there are some honourable exceptions!

However, there is no doubt that this has been a real problem, and it is probably one reason why we have so many rogue and criminal landlords.

In many areas, there is no enforcement action at all, and the rogues are allowed to continue their criminal behaviour with impunity.

However, this is all about to change.

Why Local Authority enforcement is now likely to increase

• The Renters Rights Act 2025 makes it a statutory duty for Local Authorities to enforce the landlord legislation in their area.

• Fines have been increased massively, as have rent repayment awards,

• New rules will make superior landlords and company officials personally liable, thus making it difficult for the real culprits to evade punishment, and

• Local Authorities will be able to keep the additional fine income to fund their enforcement action.

But what about collecting the fines and awards?

The other problem, of course, is that many landlords and agents, particularly the criminal ones, just ignore the fines and refuse to pay them.

Local Authorities have not been very good at enforcing payment.

It’s hard to find reliable figures. But research cited by the National Residential Landlords Association indicates that between 2021 and 2023 of £13 million in civil penalties were issued.  However, only £6 million was collected.

That’s some 54% unpaid!

All bearing out the fact that getting the fine or award is the easy part.  The hard part for Local Authorities is getting paid!

However, this is about to change

Enter JFT Legal Limited.

JFT Legal Limited is a new law firm set up by Justice for Tenants to resolve this massive problem.

Most people will know about Justice for Tenants from the work they do, assisting tenants obtain Rent Repayment Orders.

However, they also do a huge amount of work for Local Authorities (discussed here). One of their initiatives is a new law firm dedicated to enforcing judgment debts, fines and awards for Local Authorities.

The firm now has SRA approval and is already starting work.  Although the website will not be ready until June.

The firm has £500,000 of 3rd sector funding, so Local Authorities will not have to pay up front.  The fees are also being kept low and can be paid from funds received from enforcement action.

Local Authorities using Justice for Tenants’ existing civil penalty notice generator software can refer cases to JFT easily from within the same software.  So I suspect it will be a much-used service.

What this means for landlords

For good landlords, this is excellent news.  Rogue and criminal landlords are bad news all round and taint the entire sector.

It’s unfair to all the good landlords who follow the rules to see rogues and criminals ‘getting away with it’.

It also means that it is riskier to challenge civil penalty notices and/or appeal to put things off.

This will just run up your costs, and in the end, if the Local Authority uses JFT, the final bill to pay will be higher.

Many Local Authorities, when issuing a Civil Penalty Notice, will offer landlords a discount for prompt payment.

Unless there is something obviously wrong with the notice served on you, you will normally be better off ‘biting the bullet’ and taking advantage of the discount.

It will get the problem off your desk, and you will also end up paying less than you would have done had you pursued an appeal.

Note – Landlord Law members will find extensive details of and guidance on Local Authority enforcement action in our Dealing with Local Authority Enforcement Kit.