The Rental Bidding Ban: What Landlords Can and Cannot Do

The Rental Bidding Ban: What Landlords Can and Cannot Do

Since 1 May 2026 every written advertisement or offer for an assured tenancy in England must state a specific proposed rent. Section 56 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 then makes that figure a ceiling: landlords and agents must not invite, encourage or accept any offer above it. Breach carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000.

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 does section 56 actually require?

It imposes two duties, and they are separate. A landlord can comply with one and breach the other, and each carries its own penalty.

The first duty, in section 56(2), is that a relevant person must not advertise in writing, or otherwise offer in writing, a proposed letting unless the rent payable is a specific amount, called the proposed rent, and that amount is stated. This rules out the vagueness the sales market tolerates. "Offers over £1,400" and "rent on application" are not specific amounts. The figure must be a precise sum for a stated period.

The second duty, in section 56(3), is that a relevant person must not invite or encourage any person to offer rent above the stated rent, and must not accept such an offer. Section 56(4) defines the stated rent by reference to the figure stated by the person inviting, encouraging or accepting.

The scope is set by section 56(1): the section applies where the letting is on an agreement which may give rise to a relevant tenancy. A relevant tenancy is an assured tenancy within the meaning of the Housing Act 1988, other than a tenancy of social housing within the meaning of Part 2 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, or a tenancy of supported accommodation under paragraph 12 of Schedule 2 to the 1988 Act.

Accepting counts even where the landlord did nothing to prompt it. An unsolicited offer above the stated rent cannot be accepted. This is the point most often missed, because a landlord who never invited a bid may reasonably feel they have not created one.

What counts as an advertisement?

The duty attaches to writing, and it reaches further than the property portals. In practice the stated rent needs to appear on any written material offering the property, including portal listings, agent websites and window cards, social media posts, printed particulars, and email or text alerts sent to an applicant list. The figure should be identical across every channel, because a discrepancy invites the question of which one was the stated rent.

Section 56(5) contains the one express carve out. The duty to state the rent does not apply to a sign displayed at the dwelling, or at premises in which the dwelling is situated, which merely advertises that the dwelling is to let. A conventional To Let board carrying no rent figure is therefore outside section 56(2). A board that does carry a figure is a different matter, and that figure would sensibly be treated as the stated rent.

Can the asking rent be reduced?

Yes. Section 56(3) prohibits inviting, encouraging or accepting offers above the stated rent. Nothing prohibits going below it.

The government's guidance for local authorities gives the position directly, using an example of a property advertised at £1,300 per calendar month where the landlord accepts £1,000. On the guidance's analysis rental bidding has not occurred, because the offer was below the advertised figure. Reducing an advertised rent that is not attracting interest is likewise permitted.

Can the asking rent be increased?

Not for the same proposed letting. Raising the figure mid marketing is, in substance, encouraging applicants to offer more than the stated rent, which is what section 56(3) prohibits.

The position differs where the letting itself has genuinely changed. The Act does not define "proposed letting", which is where the practical uncertainty sits, but the guidance for local authorities treats a change in what is being offered as producing a different letting. Its example distinguishes a property advertised at £700 per calendar month unfurnished from £750 furnished, on the basis that there is a difference between the two offerings. The same reasoning would apply where a garage is added, or where the landlord agrees to include bills that the original listing excluded.

Three cautions apply. First, the increase should be proportionate to what has actually changed, since a nominal change used to justify a large uplift looks like the practice the section exists to stop. Second, the stage at which the change happens does not appear to matter; what matters is whether the letting is the same one. Third, a genuinely new letting is different again. If a tenancy is agreed at the asking rent and then ends shortly after it begins, the landlord is free to set a different figure when re-advertising. But where the same marketing campaign moves down a shortlist because the first applicant failed referencing, that remains the same proposed letting and the figure should not move.

Because "proposed letting" is undefined and untested, landlords making a borderline judgement here are advised to take specific advice rather than rely on a general reading.

How do you choose between applicants who all offer the asking rent?

On any lawful basis other than price. Section 56 caps what a landlord may receive; it does not compel a landlord to accept the first offer or to let to any particular applicant. Selecting on the strength of referencing, affordability, or suitability remains permitted.

Two limits apply. The first is section 56(3) itself: a landlord must not play applicants against each other to push one above the stated rent, and doing so is a breach even where no figure is ever named. Hinting that the property will go to whoever offers most is inviting or encouraging an offer above the stated rent.

The second is the rental discrimination regime in Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Act. Because price has been removed as a differentiator, selection now turns on criteria that are more exposed to challenge. Requiring a guarantor only from certain applicants, or applying an employment requirement, can amount to indirect discrimination under sections 33 and 34. See our article on discrimination rules for benefits and children for how those provisions work.

Why inflating the asking rent is a poor strategy

A landlord can lawfully advertise high and accept less, and some will read that as the obvious response to the ban. It carries a specific legal risk.

Section 7 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 rewrote section 14 of the Housing Act 1988 to give tenants a free standing right to challenge the rent payable at the First-tier Tribunal. Under the new section 14(A1) and (A2), a tenant may apply within the first six months of the tenancy, provided the rent is not already the result of a previous tribunal determination. Under section 14ZA the tribunal determines the open market rent, and the rent payable becomes the open market rent where that is lower than the rent under the tenancy.

An inflated figure that an applicant accepts is therefore vulnerable for six months, and the tribunal cannot raise the rent above what the tenancy already provides. The commercial downside is separate: an above market listing narrows the applicant pool at the point when selection quality matters more than it used to.

What are the penalties?

Section 57 allows a local housing authority to impose a financial penalty of up to £7,000 where it is satisfied that a person has breached section 56.

The standard of proof is the balance of probabilities. This is the significant procedural point, and it sets rental bidding apart from most duties under the Act. The tenancy duties inserted into the Housing Act 1988 by section 13 require the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, because prosecution is an alternative. Rental bidding is a breach with no prosecution route, so the authority need only be satisfied that a breach is more likely than not.

The MHCLG statutory guidance published on 13 November 2025 sets national starting points:

Repeat conduct is treated differently from most of the Act. Where a person has received a penalty under section 57 and, within the following five years, breaches the same subsection of section 56 again, the authority may impose an additional financial penalty. It does not become a criminal offence, unlike a repeat breach of the assured tenancy duties. Full detail on how authorities calculate a figure is in our civil penalties reference table.

What the bidding ban does not cover

Two adjacent rules are routinely folded into the bidding ban and are separate provisions with separate consequences.

Rent in advance. Section 8 of the Act inserted section 4B into the Housing Act 1988, making terms that require rent in advance of no effect for tenancies entered into on or after 1 May 2026, subject to an initial rent exception. Section 9 amended the Tenant Fees Act 2019 so that a payment of rent before an assured tenancy is entered into is a prohibited payment. Offering a large sum up front is therefore blocked by those provisions rather than by section 56, and the enforcement route is the Tenant Fees Act.

The deposit. The bidding ban is about rent. A deposit remains capped by the Tenant Fees Act 2019 at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and the interaction with a stated rent is arithmetic rather than a separate duty.

What should a landlord record?

The evidence problem here is unusual, because the material that proves compliance is transient. Portal listings are edited, social posts are deleted, and window cards are replaced. A local housing authority investigating a complaint months later will be asking what figure was advertised, on what date, and on which channels, and the landlord who cannot answer that is arguing from memory against a screenshot.

Three records are worth keeping for each letting: a dated capture of the listing as published on each channel, including any subsequent amendment; a record of the offers received with the amount and date of each; and a note of the basis on which the successful applicant was selected. The third matters more than it appears, because it does double duty. It answers the bidding question and it answers the discrimination question, and those are now the two most likely enforcement routes into a letting decision. Councils increasingly begin from data they already hold rather than from a complaint, as set out in our article on how councils find non-compliant landlords.

The bidding rules are simple to state and easy to breach in the detail, particularly where a listing is amended or a letting changes mid marketing. Ava, LLCR's compliance assistant, answers questions about the rules against the current legislation, and the platform keeps a dated record of the compliance position for each property.