For UK landlords, letting agents & inventory clerks
If you have arrived here looking for an assured shorthold tenancy template, the honest answer is that you almost certainly need something different. On 1 May 2026 the tenancy reform provisions of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force in England. From that date you cannot create a new assured shorthold tenancy, and every existing AST converted automatically into an assured periodic tenancy. Most AST templates still circulating online contain clauses that now have no legal effect.
This page explains what changed, what a tenancy agreement has to contain now, which documents you must serve and by when, how deposit rules interact with possession, and the template clauses a court will simply ignore. It is written for landlords, agents and inventory clerks in England, with notes on where the rest of the UK differs.
This is general information, not legal advice. Tenancy law carries real financial penalties and the facts of your letting matter. If anything here touches a live tenancy, a possession claim or a deposit dispute, take advice from a solicitor or your professional body before you act.
Last reviewed 22 August 2026 · checked against GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk
No — not for new lettings in England. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026 brought the tenancy reforms into force for private assured tenancies on 1 May 2026, abolishing the assured shorthold tenancy and section 21 "no fault" possession.
You cannot grant a new AST. Any private letting you agree in England today is an assured periodic tenancy, whatever the document calls itself. Existing ASTs converted automatically — nobody had to sign anything, and the old agreement still governs the tenancy, but only so far as its terms remain lawful.
It runs from one rent period to the next with no end date, until the tenant ends it or the landlord gets possession on a statutory ground. The mechanics:
No law forces you to have a written tenancy agreement — but one now forces you to give the tenant specified terms in writing, which amounts to much the same thing. Section 16D of the Housing Act 1988 requires a written statement of terms, detailed in the Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Statement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026.
It must cover, among other things: the landlord's name and any agent's details; an address in England or Wales for serving notices; the property address; the rent and when it is payable; how rent can be changed; who pays which bills; deposit protection information; and statements on security of tenure, fitness for human habitation and electrical safety.
Timing catches people out:
Failure is a civil penalty of up to £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 or prosecution where a breach continues more than 28 days after a penalty, or is repeated within five years. You need not reissue an existing written agreement.
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The biggest trap in old guidance is the How to Rent guide. GOV.UK withdrew it on 1 May 2026; it survives only for tenancies where a section 21 notice was served before that date. Any checklist still telling you to serve it is out of date.
In its place, The Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 had to be served by 31 May 2026 on every named tenant of an assured or assured shorthold tenancy whose terms were wholly or partly written and pre-dated it. It must be the exact PDF from the GOV.UK page, printed and delivered or attached to an email — sending a link is not valid. An agent can serve it and carries their own duty, but under section 16H of the Housing Act 1988 the landlord stays liable if it is not served, so get written confirmation of service. The penalty is again up to £7,000, with the same escalation.
The safety documents are unchanged:
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps are unchanged. A tenancy deposit is limited to five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, or six weeks' rent where the annual rent is between £50,000 and £100,000. A holding deposit is capped at one week's rent.
Protect the deposit in one of the three authorised schemes — the Deposit Protection Service, mydeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme — within 30 days of receiving it, and serve the prescribed information within the same 30 days. At the end of the tenancy the deposit must be returned within 10 days of agreeing the figure, and stays protected while a dispute is live.
What changed is the consequence. An unprotected deposit used to block a section 21 notice; section 21 is gone, so the sanction moved to section 8. A court will now only make a possession order if one of these is true: you protected the deposit in an approved scheme, met the scheme's requirements and gave the tenant the prescribed information; you have repaid the deposit in full, or with deductions the tenant agreed; or the tenant's court challenge about deposit protection has been decided, settled or withdrawn. Returning the deposit before the hearing is the usual cure. The tenant's separate claim for up to three times the deposit under section 214 of the Housing Act 2004 still stands.
Downloaded templates fail predictably. Strike out or rewrite anything that:
Every decent AST template referred to an inventory or schedule of condition as an attached document, and that has not changed. The inventory is not one of the prescribed terms, but it is the evidence base for the only deposit deduction that reliably survives adjudication: damage beyond fair wear and tear, proved by a dated record of the property at check-in and a like-for-like record at check-out.
Open-ended tenancies make this harder, not easier. Under the old AST there was a natural end-of-fixed-term checkout every 6 or 12 months. Now a tenancy can run for years with no scheduled inspection, and after four years nobody can credibly separate a tenant's damage from ordinary ageing without dated photographs taken along the way. Reference the inventory expressly in the written statement or agreement, get it signed or acknowledged in writing, and run periodic mid-tenancy inspections so the condition record has continuity.
This is the part we build. The Property AI produces AI photo-based inventory, check-in, check-out and mid-tenancy inspection reports with timestamped, captioned images, so the schedule of condition your agreement refers to actually exists in a form a deposit adjudicator can weigh.
Use a current assured periodic tenancy agreement drafted for the post-1 May 2026 regime, from a source that maintains it — a solicitor, the National Residential Landlords Association, or your professional body. Do not hand-edit an old AST template unless you know which clauses are now void.
Treat this as the compliance spine: the written statement of terms served before signing; the Information Sheet served where due; the deposit protected and the prescribed information served within 30 days; a valid gas safety record, EICR and EPC served at the right times; and a signed, dated inventory attached. Diarise the annual gas check, the five-yearly EICR and the EPC expiry: from late 2026 the Private Rented Sector Database begins its phased rollout.
Outside England, none of this applies. Wales has used occupation contracts under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 since 1 December 2022, with a written statement due within 14 days of the occupation date; use the Welsh model statements on GOV.WALES. Scotland uses the open-ended private residential tenancy, with 28 days' notice from tenants. Northern Ireland runs on the Private Tenancies Act (Northern Ireland) 2022.
Plainly: this is information, not legal advice; it reflects the position on 22 August 2026. Check GOV.UK before relying on any date or figure here.
No. Since 1 May 2026 you cannot create a new AST in England. Any private letting you agree now is an assured periodic tenancy regardless of what the document is titled, and the fixed-term, rent-review and long rent-period clauses in an AST template have no legal effect.
Not if you already had a written agreement in place before 1 May 2026 — the law does not require you to change or reissue it. You did, however, have to serve The Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 on every named tenant by 31 May 2026. If the pre-existing agreement was only verbal, you had to give a written statement of terms by the same date. Missing either is a civil penalty of up to £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 or prosecution for continuing or repeated breaches.
No. GOV.UK withdrew the How to Rent guide on 1 May 2026 because of the Renters' Rights Act. It survives only for tenancies where a section 21 notice was served before that date. Any checklist or template still telling you to serve it is out of date.
Five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, or six weeks' rent where the annual rent is between £50,000 and £100,000. A holding deposit is capped at one week's rent. Protect the deposit in one of the three authorised schemes and serve the prescribed information within 30 days of receiving it.
Since section 21 was abolished the sanction attaches to section 8 possession. A court will only make a possession order if the deposit was protected and the prescribed information given, or the deposit has been repaid in full or with deductions the tenant agreed, or the tenant's court challenge about protection has been decided, settled or withdrawn. Returning the deposit before the hearing is the usual cure. The tenant can still claim compensation of up to three times the deposit under section 214 of the Housing Act 2004.
An inventory is not one of the legally prescribed terms, so there is no direct penalty for omitting one. But without a signed, dated schedule of condition you will lose almost any deposit deduction for damage, because adjudicators decide on evidence. With open-ended tenancies there is no longer an automatic end-of-term checkout, so mid-tenancy condition records matter more than they did under an AST.
Every figure and date on this page was checked against these primary sources on 22 August 2026. Law and rates change — verify before you act.
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