First Tribunal Rent Decisions Under the Renters' Rights Act: What Two July 2026 Cases Show

First Tribunal Rent Decisions Under the Renters' Rights Act: What Two July 2026 Cases Show

Two of the first First-tier Tribunal rent determinations under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 were decided on 17 July 2026 by the same panel. In LON/00BB/MRA/2026/0009 the landlord's proposed rent was confirmed in full. In CAM/26UH/MRA/2026/0004 it was reduced by £125 per month. The difference lay in the comparable evidence each side produced.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Landlords should seek independent legal advice for their specific circumstances. It describes the position in England.

What the two decisions actually decided

Both were referrals of a Section 13 rent increase notice to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for determination of a market rent under sections 13 and 14 of the Housing Act 1988. Both were decided on the papers, without an oral hearing and without an inspection, by Judge Alice Holtom and Dr Jan Wilcox FRICS sitting in the Leicester region.

Both properties were purpose built build to rent flats with communal amenities. Both tenants acted in person. The statutory test in each case was the same: the rent at which the tribunal considers the dwelling might reasonably be expected to be let on the open market by a willing landlord.

Why completed lettings outweighed advertised rents

In the Skylark Point case the tribunal placed greater weight on the landlord's evidence because it comprised actual agreed lettings rather than asking rents. The tenants had relied on four two bedroom flats advertised on the landlord's own website at between £2,995 and £3,110 per month. The landlord produced nine agreed lettings of two bedroom flats in the same two towers, completed between April and June 2026, at figures ranging from £3,205 to £3,292.60 per month.

The panel accepted the tenants' point that limited information had been given about the size, layout and condition of those nine flats. It preferred them anyway, because they were within the same development and close to the valuation date. It also noted that the subject property was a build to rent flat with dynamic pricing, and treated the landlord's record of achieved rents as useful evidence of market levels on that basis.

The gap between the two evidence sets is the practical lesson. The same operator was advertising units at up to £3,110 while agreeing lettings at up to £3,292.60. Asking prices and achieved rents were roughly £150 to £200 apart, and the tenants' case was built on the lower of the two figures. The proposed rent of £3,180 sat below every one of the landlord's nine comparables, which the panel expressly recorded.

Why the Stevenage landlord's evidence was discounted

In the Stevenage case the landlord relied principally on three advertised comparables at £1,550, £1,600 and £1,650 per month, together with a letting of a smaller flat in the same block at £1,600. The panel described that letting as anecdotal, noted that it was helpful only so far as it was in the same building, and recorded that no substantive evidence had been provided to substantiate it.

The decision also records a separate difficulty. The authority filed on behalf of the landlord's representative was given in the name of a company that appeared to have been dissolved before the date of the authority. The tribunal requested evidence of authority from the named landlord and did not receive it, and so attached limited weight to unsupported submissions made by the representative and decided the case on the primary evidence before it.

The two cases together suggest that panels have so far distinguished between three tiers of comparable evidence:

1. Documented completed lettings in the same or a closely comparable development, close to the valuation date. Given the most weight in both decisions.
2. Advertised asking prices, which show what a landlord hoped to achieve rather than what was agreed. Considered, but discounted in both decisions.
3. Unevidenced assertions about lettings, including a figure stated in submissions without supporting documentation. Given little weight.

That is a pattern across two decisions of one panel, not a rule. First-tier Tribunal decisions do not bind other panels, and it remains to be seen whether other panels take the same approach.

How the panel adjusted for parking charged separately

The Stevenage tribunal arrived at £1,625 per month for the property in good order, then deducted £75 to reach £1,550. The reason was that several of the comparables relied on included allocated parking, whereas under the subject tenancy parking was charged separately at £75 per month.

This is a routine valuation adjustment, but it carries a practical point for landlords who unbundle charges. Where a comparable includes an amenity and the subject tenancy charges for it separately, the tribunal may normalise the figures by deducting the difference. The tenant also paid separately for furniture at £50 per month and broadband at £36 per month. No deduction was made for those, because none of the comparables included them either.

The tenant additionally alleged a leaking roof and an electric meter that had not worked for two years. The panel found the defects were either unsupported by evidence or relatively minor, and made no adjustment for disrepair. That outcome turned on the evidence filed rather than on any principle that disrepair is irrelevant to market rent.

What undue hardship required, and why it was not made out

The Stevenage tenant relied on a StepChange personal action plan dated 24 June 2025 and stated that he had been subject to a Debt Relief Order. The tribunal attached limited weight to that material because the document was more than a year old and did not give a reliable picture of current circumstances. No up to date evidence of income, expenditure, liabilities or the current status of the Debt Relief Order had been provided.

The reasoning that followed is the part worth noting. The determination increased the rent by £268 per month. The panel accepted that this would mean higher housing costs and might require the tenant to adjust his spending, but treated those consequences as a natural consequence of a market rent increase which did not, without more, amount to undue hardship.

Two qualifications matter here. First, this was a refusal on stale evidence, so it says little about where the threshold sits when current financial information is filed. Second, the decision describes the deferral power as a discretion to fix a later start date up to the date of determination. That wording matches the former section 14(7) of the Housing Act 1988, which was omitted with effect from 1 May 2026. Under the new section 14ZB(4), a date directed on undue hardship grounds must fall before the end of the period of two months beginning with the date of the determination. Whether the older formulation applies to a tenancy that converted on 1 May 2026 depends on the transitional and saving provisions in the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, and landlords facing a hardship argument would be advised to take advice on that point rather than assume either position.

When a challenged increase actually takes effect

Section 14ZB of the Housing Act 1988, inserted by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, now governs the effective date, and it does not simply substitute the determination date for the notice date. The rules are:

Section 14ZB(7) provides that the effective date may not be earlier than the beginning of the new period specified in the notice, so a determination cannot be backdated behind the notice.

Both July decisions fell into the first row. The determinations were made on 17 July 2026, and the notice dates were 20 August and 1 August 2026. Each increase therefore took effect exactly when the landlord had proposed. Neither tenant gained any delay by referring the notice, because the tribunal decided in roughly six weeks from application in each case.

This is worth stating plainly, because the position is often described as though a challenged increase always runs from the determination date. On the wording of section 14ZB(3), the determination date becomes relevant only where the notice date has already passed, and even then the increase runs from the first new rent period on or after the determination rather than the determination itself. Landlords serving a valid Form 4A rent increase notice with the full two months' notice will often find the tribunal has decided before the proposed date arrives.

Can the tribunal order the £47 fee to be repaid

The Stevenage tribunal declined to order reimbursement of the application fee. It set out the starting point that each party bears its own costs, held that reimbursement is not automatic merely because a party has been successful, and found that neither party had acted unreasonably.

For a tenant, the arithmetic of that case still favoured the challenge. A £47 application produced a £125 per month reduction. For the Skylark Point tenants, the same £47 produced no change to the rent and no delay to its start date. Fee recovery is a matter for the tribunal's discretion on the facts, and neither outcome should be treated as the default.

What smaller landlords can take from this

The evidence that carried most weight in both decisions is the evidence a corporate operator with hundreds of similar units can produce most easily. A landlord with four flats cannot file nine agreed lettings from its own portfolio. That does not mean the position is hopeless, but it does mean the evidence has to be assembled deliberately rather than pulled from a portal on the day the reply form is due.

Practical steps that follow from the reasoning in these two decisions:

• Ask your letting agent for achieved rents on comparable lets, not asking prices, and ask for them in writing with the address, date agreed, and property specification.
• Record the property specification of each comparable, since the Skylark Point tenants' criticism about missing floor areas was accepted as valid even though it did not change the outcome.
• Capture comparables close to the valuation date. All nine of the successful landlord's lettings were agreed within roughly two months of the notice.
• Where an amenity such as parking is charged separately, either say so and expect an adjustment, or use comparables that are structured the same way.
• Substantiate every figure. An unsupported assertion that a flat let at a particular rent was given little weight.
• Keep the service record for the notice itself alongside the evidence pack, since a notice defect can end the matter before market rent is ever reached.

One further procedural point. Both decisions were made on the papers by a panel sitting in the Leicester region, on properties in east London and Hertfordshire, and both recorded reliance on the panel's own general knowledge of rental values in the area. Landlords who consider local market knowledge to be central to their case may wish to consider requesting an oral hearing, although whether that affects allocation is not something these decisions determine.

If you are preparing a rent increase, LLCR's Form 4A generator builds the prescribed notice with the statutory date checks applied, and the compliance record retains the notice and proof of service in one place should the increase later be referred to the tribunal.