Four months into the Renters’ Rights Act: the clocks an agent keeps.

On 1 May 2026, the government said, new laws “kicked in” for eleven million renters in England. The headline was the end of section 21. The working reality for a letting agent is everything that replaced it: a system where the tenancy does not end unless somebody follows a procedure, and where each procedure has a notice period, a cap, or a fine attached.

So here is the Act as a list of clocks. Each one is a date an agent has to notice, on time, across every property they manage.

Clock one: the rent

Rent goes up by one route only: a section 13 notice setting out the new rent and giving at least two months’ notice, at most once a year. A tenant can challenge it at the tribunal before the new rent begins. For an agent with two hundred managed properties that is two hundred anniversary dates, two hundred notice windows, and a tribunal timetable behind each one.

Clock two: the letting

Landlords and agents must publish an asking rent, and it is illegal to accept an offer above it. Once a tenancy is signed and before it starts, a landlord can require at most one month’s rent in advance (28 days’ rent where the period is shorter). The bidding ban is enforced at the point of offer, which means the record of what was advertised and what was accepted is the evidence.

Clock three: possession

With section 21 gone, possession runs on grounds. The two most agents will meet (the landlord selling, or moving in) need four months’ notice and cannot be used in the first twelve months of a tenancy. Existing fixed terms converted to periodic tenancies on 1 May, so the twelve-month clock is already running on every tenancy that started after that date.

Clock four: pets

A landlord cannot unreasonably refuse a request to keep a pet and must consider every request on its own facts. Refusals can go to the ombudsman or to court. A request is therefore a dated event that needs a dated, reasoned reply, and an unanswered one is the worst outcome.

Clock five: registration and the ombudsman

Phase two now has dates. The landlord database (the “Register your rental property” service) launches on 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands and reaches the rest of England over twelve months; each area gets three months once it is called forward, and every landlord actively letting must be registered by 14 November 2027. Registration is a legal requirement, and letting or advertising a property that is not registered will be enforceable.

All private landlords in England with assured or regulated tenancies will also have to join the new ombudsman; the government’s roadmap expects that requirement in 2028, with notice given first.

What missing a clock costs

Civil penalties of up to £7,000 for an initial or minor breach and up to £40,000, or criminal prosecution, for serious, persistent or repeated non-compliance: the same scale applies to the database and ombudsman duties. Local councils enforce.

What this has to do with us

Nothing about the law is automatable and nothing about the calendar should be done by hand. The judgement (is this rent the market rate, is this pet request reasonable, is this ground made out) stays with a person. The noticing (the anniversary is in nine weeks, the notice must go by Friday, the registration for this area opens next month, this request has been open six days) is exactly the kind of work that gets missed at two hundred properties and never at twenty.

That is a document-chasing and diary agent with a very specific rulebook: read the tenancy dates, compute the windows, write to the named negotiator with the property, the clock and the deadline, and log that it did. The chasing offer is the same machine; the rulebook is the Act. And because the ombudsman and the council will both ask what was sent and when, the record is the point.

What to do this quarter

1. Put every managed tenancy’s start date and last rent increase in one list. Those two dates generate most of the clocks.
2. Record the asking rent on every listing, dated, and keep it with the accepted offer.
3. Watch for your area’s call to register: the service opens on 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands, every area has three months once called, and letting an unregistered property is the breach.
4. Answer every pet request in writing, with reasons, within days. The unanswered request is the one that goes to the ombudsman.

What this does not tell you

The position outside England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own tenancy law, and none of the clocks above transfers. It is also not legal advice on a specific tenancy: possession grounds in particular carry conditions this page summarises rather than states, and the notice periods are minimums, not a promise of what a court will accept.

One date is still moving. Registration is fixed (15 December 2026 to 14 November 2027, area by area) but ombudsman membership is only “expected” in 2028, and the date for your area to register is set when it is called forward. Both will change here as the department confirms them.