Scotland Rent Increase Notice Form: The Prescribed Notice You Must Use

Generic letters do not raise rent in Scotland. The Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 requires landlords to serve a specific prescribed document — the Schedule 2 Rent-Increase Notice under SSI 2017/297. Serve anything else and the rent stays exactly where it is.

The Only Form That Works

The statutory Rent-Increase Notice is the sole lawful mechanism for increasing rent on a Private Residential Tenancy. Informal communications — a letter from your letting agent, an email asking the tenant to pay more, a clause in the tenancy agreement indexing rent to CPI — carry zero legal weight. The tenant has no obligation to pay a penny more than the current contractual rent unless they receive the prescribed form with all three parts intact.

The form has three parts. Part 1 captures tenancy and party details: full legal names of every landlord and tenant, the property address, valid landlord registration numbers, and the tenancy start date. Part 2 records the rent increase itself: current rent, proposed new rent, payment frequency, the effective date, and the date of the last increase. Part 3 is the tenant's response form and mandatory guidance notes explaining their right to challenge the increase through Rent Service Scotland.

All three parts must be served together. Sending Parts 1 and 2 without the Part 3 guidance notes invalidates the entire notice.

Where to Get the Form

Two routes. The Scottish Government's mygov.scot provides an online generator that auto-populates the notice from your inputs and calculates minimum notice windows. Alternatively, download the official Word or PDF template published under SSI 2017/297 from gov.scot.

Do not substitute a publisher template, a bespoke solicitor letter, or an English Section 13 notice. English forms have no legal force in Scotland. The notice must follow the exact prescribed format.

Filling in Each Section Correctly

Landlord registration number: every notice must state your valid registration number from the local authority. If your application is pending, write "Landlord Registration Pending" — do not leave it blank.

Joint tenants: list every adult named on the tenancy agreement individually. Each joint tenant gets their own copy of the complete notice.

Agent details: if a letting agent issues the notice on your behalf, their full business name, address, and Letting Agent Registration Number must appear on the form.

Dates: the tenant must receive three full calendar months' notice; for post or email, deemed receipt is 48 hours after dispatch. The effective date must be the day after the notice period expires and at least 12 months after the tenancy start date or effective date of the last rent increase. Get either calculation wrong and the tenant can reject the increase by returning Part 3.

Signature: the notice must be signed and dated by the landlord or authorised agent. Electronic signatures are valid under Scottish contract law.

What Happens If You Make a Mistake

A served notice cannot be amended. If you spot an error in the amounts, dates, or party details after delivery, you must formally withdraw the notice in writing and serve a fresh one. The three-month clock restarts from the date the corrected notice is deemed received.

The withdrawn notice does not reset the 12-month frequency clock — it simply never took effect. But you lose the time spent waiting.

Get the Full Compliance Workflow

The prescribed form is the starting point, not the whole process. Timing calculations, service method rules, and Rent Service Scotland adjudication risk all sit on top of it. Our Scotland rent increases guide walks through the complete statutory procedure from eligibility checks to tribunal appeals, with dated checklists and a service-date calculator built in.

See more Scotland guides →