Landlord using the new Renters’ Rights Act to force a “new tenancy” and raise rent AGAIN only months later?
Has anyone dealt with this under the new Renters’ Rights Act / APT system? (England)
I’m in a joint tenancy in a 4 bed with a landlord agency (large company who own around 3000 homes in the local area) and one tenant is moving out. Previously, the process was simple: the outgoing tenant found a replacement, the remaining tenants approved them, references were done, and the tenancy basically continued with a tenant swap.
Now the agency are saying that because of the Renters’ Rights Act, they “no longer facilitate tenancy transfers” and instead the entire tenancy has to end and a completely new tenancy has to be issued.
But from what I understood, existing ASTs automatically converted into Assured Periodic Tenancies (APTs), not brand new tenancies where we're being asked to go through the application and referencing process again. I also can’t find anything in the legislation saying assignments/deeds of variation/replacement tenants are abolished entirely.
The bigger issue is this: we already renewed the tenancy and had a rent increase in October 2025 to what they themselves described as the average market rate. Now they’re implying the flat may be subject to another rent review because they’re treating this as a “new tenancy” instead of a continuation with one replacement tenant.
So effectively:
- landlord refuses tenant swaps,
- says the old tenancy must end,
- creates a “new tenancy”,
- then uses that to potentially reset the rent again only months later.
Isn’t this basically a loophole in the new system? Especially for build to rent companies that own entire developments and can just impose this policy across all properties?
They also currently won’t even tell us the proposed rent figure in advance, while expecting the rest of us to decide whether to stay or move out.
Would really appreciate if anyone with housing law knowledge or experience under the new rules could weigh in because this feels very different from how the reforms were presented publicly.