Do Landlords Need a New Tenancy Agreement Under the Renters' Rights Act

This was the most common question on landlord forums in the months before 1 May 2026, and agents charging £100–£200 to "update" contracts did nothing to clear it up. The short answer: for most existing tenancies, no — you do not need a new agreement.

Existing Written Tenancies: No New Agreement Needed

If you had a written AST in place before 1 May 2026 — whether fixed-term, contractual periodic, or statutory periodic — it converted into an assured periodic tenancy automatically by operation of law. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 changed the legal character of the tenancy without requiring either party to sign anything.

Your existing written agreement continues to apply, except that any clause the Act makes void is now unenforceable. That includes fixed end dates, contractual rent review clauses, break clauses, and any reference to Section 21 notices. Those provisions simply stop working. The rest of your agreement — property address, rent amount, deposit arrangements, obligations around maintenance and access — carries over unchanged.

The critical obligation for existing written tenancies was to serve the official Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 on every named tenant by 31 May 2026. That one-page government document tells existing tenants what changed. It does not replace the tenancy agreement.

When You Do Need a New Written Statement

Three situations require a new Section 16D Written Statement of Terms:

Oral or unwritten tenancies. If your pre-May 2026 tenancy was based on a verbal agreement with no written contract, the Information Sheet alone was not enough. You needed to provide a full Written Statement of Terms by 31 May 2026, covering all 16 mandatory fields prescribed by S.I. 2026/324 — from landlord identity and service address to rent details, deposit information, and statutory statements on repairs, safety, and tenant rights.

New tenancies from 1 May 2026 onwards. Every tenancy entered into on or after 1 May 2026 must start with a Written Statement of Terms served on the tenant before the agreement is signed. The law is strict on timing: the statement comes first, the signature second. If the agreement was signed before 1 May but the tenancy starts on or after that date, the Written Statement must be provided before or at possession.

Tenancies that become assured mid-life. If a letting only becomes an assured tenancy after it starts — for example, when a tenant establishes the property as their principal home — the landlord has 28 days to provide the Written Statement.

What About Updating Existing Clauses

Some landlords want to clean up their existing agreements by removing the now-void clauses — the fixed end date, the RPI rent review, the Section 21 references. That is fine to do, but it is not legally required. The statute overrides those clauses whether you delete them from the document or not.

If you do decide to update your agreement, be careful not to introduce any terms that the new law prohibits. You cannot create a fixed term, restrict the tenant's two-month notice right, or include a rent review mechanism outside the Section 13 Form 4A process. A clause that attempts any of these is void under Section 16E of the Housing Act 1988 and exposes you to a civil penalty of up to £7,000.

The Agent Fee Question

Letting agents who offered paid "contract re-signing" or "agreement update" services after May 2026 were selling something landlords did not legally need. The statutory conversion happened automatically. An updated agreement might be tidier, but paying an agent to execute it was not a compliance requirement.

Where agents do add value is in ensuring the Information Sheet was properly served — meaning the actual PDF or printed document was delivered to each named tenant, not just a web link emailed in bulk. Statutory liability for a missed or improperly served Information Sheet rests with the landlord regardless of whether an agent was instructed to handle it.

A Simple Decision Framework

If your tenancy was written and existed before 1 May 2026: serve the Information Sheet, keep your existing agreement, and move on. If it was oral: you needed a Written Statement. If it is new: you need a Written Statement before signing. If you are unsure where your tenancy falls or what the Written Statement must contain, the Assured Periodic Tenancies compliance kit has the full requirements with a decision map and the prescribed fields checklist.

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