The Renters' Rights Act and the end of your tenancy

The Renters' Rights Act moved the date you leave. It did not move the standard you leave the property in. Those two things are easy to run together, and that is where most of the confusion about this subject starts.

Government guidance for tenants states that the Act changes how landlords let out private properties on or from 1 May 2026. That is a change to the machinery of a tenancy: how it converts, how it ends, how much notice runs in each direction. What a property has to look like when the keys go back sits in a different place entirely, and the Act did not go there.

What actually changed on 1 May 2026

Your tenancy probably converted, and nobody had to sign anything

Government guidance states that most existing assured shorthold tenancies automatically became assured periodic tenancies on 1 May 2026. There was no new agreement, no letter to counter-sign, and in a lot of cases no conversation about it. The document in your drawer still says what it always said.

That matters for one practical reason. The fixed end date printed on that document stopped being the date your tenancy runs to. If you have been planning a move around it, you have been planning around a date that no longer governs anything.

Section 21 went with it

Government guidance states that from 1 May 2026 you can no longer be evicted using the 'no fault' section 21 process, even if your tenancy agreement says you can. The clause surviving in the printed agreement does not bring the process back.

The part that helps you: you now pick the date

Two months' notice, counted by you

Government guidance states that if you want to end an assured periodic tenancy after 1 May 2026, you can end it by giving 2 months' notice. Read against the old fixed term, that is a genuine shift in who controls the calendar.

Under a fixed term the handover date was set for you, often landing on a weekday in the middle of a working month, with a check-out appointment attached to it. Under a periodic tenancy you choose when the notice starts, so you choose which two months you are working with.

The landlord's side of the same clock

Government guidance states that landlords have to use the correct forms and give the correct amount of notice, usually 4 months, though it can be shorter for some grounds. So the timetable is asymmetric by design: a tenant leaves on two months, a landlord usually has to give four.

What the Act left exactly where it was

The cleaning standard

Nothing in the tenant guidance touches it. The standard a property is judged against at check-out is still the condition recorded at check-in, and fair wear and tear still sits where it sat. Our end of tenancy cleaning guide for Uxbridge goes through what the deposit schemes actually say about that, including what a professional-cleaning clause in an agreement is and is not worth.

The money at both ends

Two of the Act's changes are about rent rather than cleaning, and both are worth knowing before you sign anything new. Government guidance states that a landlord cannot ask for, encourage or accept a payment of rent before you have signed the tenancy agreement, and that once you have signed you can be asked for a maximum of 1 month's rent in advance.

The deposit rules did not move. Government guidance on the Tenant Fees Act 2019 states that if the annual rent is below £50,000 the maximum deposit is up to 5 weeks' rent. Government guidance on deposit protection states that a landlord or agent must put the deposit in a scheme within 30 days of getting it, and must return it within 10 days of both of you agreeing how much comes back.

Putting it in order

If you would rather hand the cleaning over, our end of tenancy cleaning service covers the detail a check-out looks at first, and landlords turning a property around between lets can use our landlord cleaning service on the same schedule. Send the address, the number of rooms and your handover date through the quote form and we will price the work in front of us.