In this blog:
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When should I start the autumn rent review process in North West London?
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How do I increase rent correctly under the Renters' Rights Act?
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What is the real risk if a resident challenges my rent increase at tribunal?
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How do I keep a good resident while still protecting my income at renewal?
The autumn renewal conversation is the most important one most landlords have all year. It determines whether the rent reflects the current market, whether the resident feels fairly treated, and whether the tenancy continues on terms that work for both parties.
Most landlords have it too late, without the right evidence, and without the right framing. Before May, those things were inconvenient. Under the current rules, all three of them carry consequences they did not before.
Why timing matters more than anything else at renewal
Since the Renters' Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026, the only lawful way to increase rent on a private residential tenancy is through a Section 13 notice served on the prescribed Form 4A. Contractual rent review clauses in tenancy agreements are now void. Verbal agreements, informal letters, and renewal conversations that result in a higher rent without a properly served notice have no legal basis. The only route is Section 13.
That process requires a minimum of two months' notice, aligned to the resident's rent due date, and rent can only be increased once in any twelve-month period. A notice served too close to the review date is not a notice that can be rushed through. It is a notice that pushes the increase back by however long it takes to serve a valid one.
If you want a rent increase to take effect before Christmas, the process needs to start this week. Not when the date arrives. Not when it feels urgent.
At Paramount, we contact owners three to four months before a review date. That window exists for a specific reason. It allows time to agree a figure with the owner based on current evidence, approach the resident with the right framing, allow time for any conversation, and serve the notice correctly with the full two months in place before the date it needs to take effect. A landlord who starts in September for a December review is in a position where everything can be handled correctly. A landlord who starts in October is already under pressure.
If your review is due before the end of the year and nobody has been in touch with you about it yet, that is the first thing worth raising with your agent.
What the tribunal risk actually means in practice
A resident who disagrees with a proposed rent increase can apply to the First-tier Tribunal, which costs them approximately £47. The tribunal determines the open market rent for the property. It cannot set a rent higher than the landlord proposed. And if a decision is reached after the date the increase was due to take effect, the increase does not apply before the decision and is not backdated.
That last point is the one most landlords do not fully understand. A challenge does not prevent an increase from eventually taking effect. What it does is delay it, sometimes significantly, during which time the rent remains at its previous level. That delay is the real cost to the landlord, not the outcome of the challenge itself.
An increase set at or below the current open market rent, supported by comparable evidence from your specific area in the last three months, is the most defensible position at tribunal and the one most likely to avoid a challenge entirely. A figure arrived at without evidence, set above where the market actually sits, or served without following the correct process, is the one that attracts challenges and costs landlords the most in delayed income.
How to have the renewal conversation without losing a good resident
A rent increase and a good resident relationship are not incompatible. The landlords who manage to protect both almost always approach the conversation in the same way.
They start it early. They come with evidence rather than a figure. And they give the resident time to consider and respond before any notice is formally served.
A resident who receives a Section 13 notice as the first they hear of a rent increase feels managed rather than consulted. They have two months to decide whether to accept the increase, look for somewhere else, or challenge it at tribunal. The decision is entirely reactive because they had no involvement in the conversation before the formal process began.
A resident who is approached three to four months before their review date, shown the comparable evidence for the proposed figure, and given time to ask questions and respond, is in a fundamentally different position. In most cases that conversation produces an agreed renewal before any formal notice is required. The notice, when it is served, confirms something already understood rather than presenting something new.
The commercial consequence of that difference is significant. A resident who feels the renewal was handled fairly is considerably more likely to stay. A resident who feels a notice arrived without warning is considerably more likely to look elsewhere, regardless of whether the figure itself was reasonable. And under the current framework, where possession requires specific legal grounds and a void period is a more disruptive event than it was before May, keeping a good resident in place has a clear and direct commercial value.
Our average tenancy across the portfolio is 36 months. How renewals are handled is a significant part of why that figure sits where it does.
What to do if you have not started yet
If a review is due before the end of the year and the process has not yet begun, the most useful thing to do tonight is find out exactly where things stand.
Three questions worth putting to your agent directly:
1. When is my next rent review due, and what date does the Section 13 notice need to be served by for the increase to take effect on time?
2. What comparable evidence are you using to support the proposed figure, and is it based on what has actually let in my specific streets in the last three months?
3. Has the resident been spoken to informally yet, and what is the plan for that conversation before the notice is served?
If the answers to any of those require your agent to go away and check, that tells you something important about whether the process is being managed proactively. An agent who knows the portfolio is managing these conversations in advance, not responding to them when the date arrives.
What this means for your renewal this autumn
The autumn renewal is not a piece of paperwork. It is the most commercially significant conversation you have in the management of a tenancy, and under the current framework it has more moving parts than it did before May. The timing, the evidence, the process, and the resident conversation all need to be right before the notice is served, not after.
We do not think the best evidence of how we work comes from us describing it. It comes from 1,530 people who trusted us with their homes and investment properties across West Hampstead, Kilburn, Brondesbury, and North West London and left a review afterwards. Those reviews placed us in the top 2% of estate agents nationally, ranked number 10 out of more than 20,000 agencies, as a Trusted Agent 2026 Platinum winner. What they tell us consistently is that the right conversations happen before they need to, not after.
If your tenancy is coming up for renewal before the end of the year and you want to understand whether the process is being managed correctly, a review call with us is the most useful place to start. We will go through the timing, the evidence, and the plan for the resident conversation, and tell you plainly whether everything is in the right shape.
Book a review call here.
