Since 1 May 2026 there is one lawful way to raise the rent on an assured tenancy in England, and one way to challenge it. This is how both work — including the change that means a tenant can no longer be made worse off by challenging.
You can raise the rent once every 12 months, by Section 13 notice on Form 4A, up to market rate, with at least two months’ notice. A tenant can challenge it at tribunal for £47 — but the rent can only go down or stay the same, never higher.
That has turned “market rate” from a phrase into a question of evidence — which is what most of this guide is about.
This guide covers the procedure. If you have not yet settled on the figure itself, start with how much rent should I charge? — the benchmarking method, and the reason an over-reached number now has no upside.
This guide is part of our landlord compliance series — sourced guides to the biggest deadlines and duties facing English landlords right now.
Frequency. You cannot increase the rent more than once in any twelve-month period.
Notice. At least two months’ notice before the new rent takes effect.
Form. The increase is served on Form 4A. This matters more than it sounds: a Section 13 increase served in the wrong form, or with less than the required notice, is not a valid increase, and the tenant does not owe the new figure. Getting the paperwork wrong does not produce a smaller increase — it produces no increase.
Ceiling. The new rent can be up to market rate, and no higher.
A tenant who believes the proposed rent is above open market rent can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for an open market rent determination.
The deadline is strict. The application must be made before the start date of the new rent given in the notice — and GOV.UK is explicit that you should apply before that date even if you are still collecting your supporting evidence. Miss the date and the route closes, however good the case was.
The fee is £47. It is waived if the notice proposing the new rent is dated before 1 May 2026, or if the property is socially rented. Fee assistance is available for applicants with limited savings who meet certain benefit or income criteria.
The tribunal decides what the open market rent for the property should be. It is not deciding whether the increase feels fair, whether the landlord’s costs have risen, or whether the tenant can afford it — it is deciding a market figure on evidence.
Under the old regime a tenant who challenged an increase could end up with a higher rent than the landlord had proposed, because the tribunal simply determined the market figure wherever it fell. That risk deterred challenges, which was widely understood to be part of its effect.
That has been removed. The determined rent can come out lower than the landlord’s figure or the same as it, but never above it. In GOV.UK’s own words, the market rent determined “might end up being lower or the same as the rent mentioned in the landlord’s notice of increase”.
What this means for each side. For a tenant, the downside of challenging is now the £47 and the effort, not the risk of a worse outcome. For a landlord, it means an over-reached figure has no upside: propose above market and the likely result is either an unchallenged overpayment that damages the tenancy, or a determination that drags you back down. The asymmetry rewards a defensible number.
The normal case. The tribunal usually decides the new rent is payable from the proposed start date in the landlord’s notice, where that date falls after the tribunal’s decision.
If the decision comes later than the proposed date — which is common, since applications take time — the new rent will usually start from the next payment date after the decision. It is not backdated to the notice date, and it cannot be backdated to before the application was made.
Tenancies less than six months old are handled differently: the tribunal sets the start date, and it will not be earlier than the date the application was submitted.
Hardship deferral. A tenant can ask the tribunal to postpone the date the new rent becomes payable, but must provide full details of their financial circumstances in the application and explain why paying from the proposed date would cause hardship. This is a substantiated request, not a box to tick.
This is the part both sides get wrong, and it is the part worth reading twice. GOV.UK’s guidance ranks the evidence: “details from market rental agreements is usually stronger evidence than that from housing associations, previous fair rent decisions or local housing allowance rates”.
In descending order of usefulness, then:
Strongest — evidence from actual agreed lettings. Real rental agreements for genuinely comparable properties. What a similar property actually let for beats what a similar property was advertised at, and beats both of the categories below.
Useful — letting agent and portal listings. Information from letting agents or sites such as Rightmove and Zoopla is explicitly accepted. It is asking prices rather than achieved rents, which is exactly why it sits below agreed lettings.
Necessary context — the property itself. Features, size, floor plans, photographs, condition, local amenities. Comparables are only comparable if you have established what is being compared: a two-bedroom flat with parking and one without are not the same evidence.
Weaker — housing association rents, previous fair rent decisions, local housing allowance rates. Named in the guidance as the less persuasive categories. LHA in particular is a benefit calculation, not a market measurement, and arguing from it tends not to land.
We publish free, official rent data and it is genuinely useful here — but we are not going to tell you it wins a case, because that is not what the guidance says.
Our city rent guides carry average private rent by area and bedroom category, with a 24-month trend and comparison to region and to England, from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents. Our rental yield index covers 294 English local authorities. Both are official statistics of actual private rents, dated and attributed — which makes them good for establishing the general level and direction of the market in an area, and good for sanity-checking whether a proposed increase is plausible before anyone spends £47 or two months of goodwill finding out.
What they are not is a set of comparables for your specific property. An area average cannot tell a tribunal what a three-bedroom terrace on your street with a new kitchen should let for. Bring both: the specific comparables as your primary evidence, and the official series as the backdrop that shows your comparables are not cherry-picked. Used that way the data is honest and it helps. Used as a substitute for comparables, it is neither.
Start from evidence, not from your costs. The tribunal is determining market rent. A mortgage repricing is a real problem and an irrelevant argument.
Assemble the comparables before you serve, not after. If you cannot find three genuinely similar local lettings supporting your figure, that is information about your figure.
Get the notice right. Form 4A, at least two months, not more than once a year. Procedure is the cheapest thing to get right and the most expensive to get wrong.
Price the relationship as well as the property. A defensible increase served properly with an explanation is far less likely to be challenged than a maximal one served bluntly — and a challenge costs you months of the old rent regardless of outcome, because the new rent will not be backdated.
Check validity before anything else. Was it Form 4A? Was it at least two months’ notice? Has the rent already been increased within the last twelve months? An invalid notice is not a rent increase.
Then check the figure against the market. If comparable local properties are letting at or above the proposed rent, a challenge is unlikely to help. If they are letting materially below it, you have something.
Apply before the start date, evidence or not. The deadline is the application, not the case. GOV.UK says to apply even if you are still gathering evidence.
Know the downside is bounded. The tribunal cannot set your rent above what the landlord proposed. The cost is £47, possibly waived or assisted, plus your time.
If the timing is the problem rather than the amount, put the hardship case in the application with full financial details — deferral of the payable date is a distinct remedy from a lower rent.
We have built a report generator that produces a formatted, tribunal-ready rent evidence document for any of the 294 English local authorities we publish, by bedroom category: the official average rent for the area and size, how it has moved over twelve months, how the area compares to its region and to England, and a sourced, dated reference for every figure — written for either side of a case.
It is not on sale. There is no checkout, no price and no way to buy one today, so there is nothing to link you to — and on the evidence hierarchy above it would be context rather than comparables in any event. We would rather say that plainly than put a button here that does nothing. Everything described in this guide can be done without it, using the free data linked above.
How often can rent be increased? Once in any twelve-month period, by Section 13 notice on Form 4A, with at least two months’ notice, to no more than market rate.
Can the tribunal set a rent higher than the landlord asked for? No. The determined rent may be lower than or the same as the figure in the landlord’s notice, but not higher.
How much does it cost to challenge a rent increase? £47. The fee is waived where the notice is dated before 1 May 2026 or the property is socially rented, and fee assistance is available on limited savings with certain benefit or income criteria.
What is the deadline to apply? Before the start date of the new rent given in the notice. GOV.UK advises applying before that date even if you are still collecting evidence.
Is the new rent backdated to the notice date? No. It usually runs from the proposed start date where that is after the decision, or otherwise from the next payment date after the decision, and never earlier than the application date.
What evidence does the tribunal find most persuasive? Details from actual market rental agreements for comparable properties. Letting agent and portal listings are accepted; housing association rents, previous fair rent decisions and local housing allowance rates are named as weaker.
Can a rent review clause in the tenancy agreement still be used? No. Section 13 is the route for assured tenancies, and increases are limited to once a year at market rate.
Can the start date be postponed if the tenant cannot afford it? The tribunal can defer the date the new rent becomes payable on hardship grounds, but the tenant must supply full financial details and explain the hardship in the application.
UK Property Portal is written and published by Dan Woodcock, working independently from UK. It is a one-person operation — there is no newsroom and no research team behind it — and every figure, date and threshold on this page is sourced, attributed and dated to the document it comes from. Read the full editorial standard →
Check the market before you serve — or before you challenge.
Average private rent by area and bedroom count, with the 24-month trend and comparison to region and England — official ONS data, sourced and dated.
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