The assured shorthold tenancy was the backbone of private renting in England for more than three decades. Since the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force, that backbone has been removed. The AST no longer exists as a tenancy type: every assured tenancy is now periodic, open-ended, and governed by a single set of rules. If you are a landlord who still thinks in terms of fixed terms and Section 21, this guide explains what replaced the assured shorthold tenancy, what the new framework demands of you, and where the old habits will now cost you a possession order.
The shift is not cosmetic. It rewrites how tenancies begin, how they end, and how rent moves. An old AST template downloaded today will not be compliant, and serving the wrong notice is the fastest way to find your claim thrown out at the door of the County Court.
What the assured shorthold tenancy actually was
An assured shorthold tenancy was the default residential letting in England and Wales, created under the Housing Act 1988. Its defining feature was flexibility for the landlord: a fixed term, usually six or twelve months, followed by a statutory periodic tenancy if neither party did anything, and the famous Section 21 route that let a landlord recover the property without giving any reason. That last feature is what earned it the label no-fault eviction, and it is precisely what made the AST politically untenable in the end.
The AST sat alongside the ordinary assured tenancy, which gave tenants far more security because the landlord could only rely on the Section 8 grounds for possession. In practice almost every private let in England was an AST, because landlords wanted the certainty of getting their property back. The whole structure rested on the tenant having weaker security in exchange for a more liquid rental market. Removing Section 21 pulled the keystone out, and the government chose to remove the entire arch rather than patch it.
The legal framework after the Renters' Rights Act
The Renters' Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025, and its central tenancy reforms took effect from 1 May 2026. From that date the assured shorthold tenancy was abolished for both new and existing lettings. Existing ASTs did not need to be re-papered; they converted automatically into periodic assured tenancies, fixed terms fell away, and the new rules applied across the board. The government's stated reason was to avoid a confusing two-tier market where some tenants kept old protections and others gained new ones.
Three changes sit at the heart of the new regime. First, every assured tenancy is now periodic from the outset, rolling on a monthly basis with no fixed end date, and a landlord can no longer grant a fixed term. Second, Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone: a landlord who wants possession must serve a Section 8 notice citing a specific statutory ground and, in most cases, prove it in court. Third, rent can rise only once a year, and only through the statutory Section 13 procedure on the new Form 4A, with at least two months' notice. Contractual rent-review clauses, RPI-linked uplifts and any other bespoke mechanism written into a tenancy agreement no longer have effect.
A tenant, by contrast, gained the right to leave at any time on two months' notice. There is no minimum term binding them in. For the authoritative position and the staged commencement dates, the government's overview of the reforms on the official guidance for the Renters' Rights Act on GOV.UK is the source to check before you act on anything that touches timing.
How possession works now that Section 21 is gone
This is where most landlords will feel the change. With the no-fault route closed, possession is entirely grounds-based, evidence-driven and court-dependent. You serve a Section 8 notice, you identify the ground, and you stand ready to prove it. The Act both rewrote the existing grounds and added new ones, and the notice periods are longer than landlords were used to.
Two new grounds matter most to ordinary landlords. Ground 1A allows possession where the landlord intends to sell, and Ground 1 covers a landlord or close family member moving in. Both require four months' notice, and neither can be used during the first twelve months of a tenancy. There is a sting in the tail: once you have used either ground, you cannot re-let or re-advertise the property for twelve months, which closes the obvious loophole of claiming a sale and then quietly putting it back on the market. The arrears ground was also tightened, so a tenant now needs to be in roughly three months of arrears before that mandatory route opens, with a four-week notice period rather than the old two weeks.
The transition deserves a word. A valid Section 21 notice served before 1 May 2026 could still be used, but only if court proceedings were started by 31 July 2026. After that cut-off the old route is dead in every sense. If you are reading this with a tenancy that pre-dates the reform, the practical point is simple: do not assume any old notice still has life in it, and plan every future possession around the revised Section 8 grounds. When you reach that stage, a properly drafted Section 8 notice template built around the current grounds is what keeps the claim alive in front of a judge.
Deposits, prescribed information and the compliance trail
The reform did not touch the deposit rules, and that is exactly why they trip people up: landlords assume everything changed, then forget the obligations that survived. A deposit still has to be protected in an authorised scheme such as the TDS, DPS or MyDeposits within thirty days of receipt, and the prescribed information still has to be served on the tenant inside the same window. Get this wrong and you face a penalty of up to three times the deposit, on top of the practical fallout for any later possession claim.
What has changed is the wider compliance environment around the tenancy. Landlords now have to give tenants a written statement of the key terms before the tenancy begins, and existing tenants had to receive the government's Information Sheet explaining the reforms. Later phases of the Act bring a PRS Database and a compulsory landlord ombudsman scheme: once those are live, a property cannot be marketed or let unless the landlord and the property have active database entries, and possession orders will be unavailable without them, save for serious anti-social behaviour. The lesson for record-keeping is that everything you do should leave a paper trail. A correctly served deposit receipt and prescribed information pack is the kind of document that looks trivial until a tenant disputes the deposit two years later.
Tenancies that fall outside the new regime
Not every living arrangement became an assured periodic tenancy on 1 May 2026, and knowing the boundaries is part of getting the paperwork right. Lodger arrangements, where a resident landlord shares the property, sit outside the assured regime entirely and run as excluded licences, which is why a landlord renting a spare room does not need a court order to bring the arrangement to an end. Company lets, genuine holiday lets and tenancies where the property is not the tenant's only or principal home also fall outside the rules, as do most long leases.
These distinctions are not academic. A landlord who lets a room in their own home is in a completely different legal position from one letting a self-contained flat, and using the wrong document blurs a line the courts take seriously. If a resident landlord papers a lodger arrangement with a full tenancy agreement, they risk handing the occupier security they never intended to give. For that situation a purpose-built lodger agreement drafted as an excluded licence is the right instrument, not a residential tenancy template stripped of its teeth.
Drafting a compliant tenancy on Captain.Legal
Generating a tenancy that reflects the post-reform law is a matter of answering a few questions rather than hunting for a template that may already be out of date. You start by choosing the residential tenancy in the UK real estate documents category, then the assistant asks about the property, the parties, the rent and the deposit. Because the tenancy is periodic by default, you are not asked to set a fixed term that the law no longer permits, and the document is built around the current framework rather than the abolished AST structure.
The questions steer you through the points that now carry legal weight: the written statement of terms due before the tenancy starts, the deposit protection details, and the mandatory information a tenant must receive. The output comes as both a PDF ready to sign and an editable Word file, so you can adjust a clause if your circumstances are unusual without rebuilding the document from scratch. The value here is staying current without paying for a solicitor to redraft a tenancy every time the law shifts, which, given the staged commencement of the remaining reforms, it will continue to do. When the wider business and company documents or employment contracts become relevant to a portfolio landlord operating through a company, the same approach applies across the catalogue.
Common mistakes landlords are making
The most damaging error is reaching for an old Section 21 notice or a downloaded AST template out of habit. Both belong to a system that no longer exists, and a tenancy agreement that promises a fixed term or reserves a no-fault right is not just outdated, it actively misrepresents the law to your tenant and undermines you in any dispute. A close second is misjudging the notice periods: landlords who built their plans around two months' notice are caught out by the four-month periods on the sale and move-in grounds, and by the twelve-month bar on using them early in a tenancy.
The third trap is the rent-review clause. Many landlords carried over a clause allowing annual increases by fixed percentage or in line with an index, and assume it still governs. It does not. Every increase now runs through the statutory Section 13 route with its own notice and its own form, and a tribunal can be asked to rule on whether the proposed figure is excessive. Fourth, landlords forget that the deposit rules survived untouched, so they relax on the thirty-day protection deadline at exactly the moment the consequences are sharpest. Finally, resident landlords sometimes paper a lodger as a tenant, accidentally creating security of tenure they never meant to grant. Each of these is avoidable with the right document and a clear grasp of which regime applies.
Frequently asked questions
Does the assured shorthold tenancy still exist in England?
No. The assured shorthold tenancy was abolished by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 when its main provisions took effect on 1 May 2026. Every assured tenancy is now periodic and open-ended, and landlords can no longer create a new AST or grant a fixed term. Existing ASTs were not left in place either; they converted automatically into periodic assured tenancies on the same date, with fixed terms falling away. If you see an "AST agreement" still offered anywhere, treat the label as shorthand for a residential tenancy drafted under the current framework, not the old tenancy type.
Is a tenancy agreement created on Captain.Legal legally valid?
Yes, provided you complete it accurately and serve it correctly. The tenancy document is drafted to reflect the post-reform framework under the Housing Act 1988 as amended, including the periodic structure and the written statement of terms a tenant must receive before the tenancy begins. Validity in practice depends on you also meeting the surrounding obligations: protecting the deposit within thirty days, serving the prescribed information, and keeping the records that prove you did so. The document gives you a compliant instrument; the law still expects you to follow the steps around it.
Can I download the tenancy as Word and PDF?
Yes. Every document generates in both formats. The PDF is the signing copy, formatted and ready to print or sign electronically, while the Word file lets you edit a clause where your circumstances need it, for example an unusual arrangement over utilities or access. Most landlords use the PDF as-is, but the editable version matters when a standard template does not quite fit and you would otherwise be tempted to strike clauses out by hand, which creates ambiguity. Both downloads are available immediately once the document is generated.
How much notice do I have to give a tenant now?
It depends on the ground. For the new sale ground (Ground 1A) and the move-in ground (Ground 1), you must give four months' notice, and you cannot use either ground during the first twelve months of the tenancy. The tightened arrears ground carries a four-week notice period once the tenant reaches roughly three months of arrears. There is no longer any route that lets you recover possession without a stated ground, so the old two-month Section 21 notice is no longer an option. Always match the notice period to the specific ground you are relying on, because citing the wrong one will have the claim rejected.
What happened to Section 21 no-fault evictions?
Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026. From that date no new Section 21 notice could be served. A notice validly served before then could still be used, but only if you started court proceedings by 31 July 2026; after that final cut-off the route closed entirely. Possession now runs exclusively through the Section 8 grounds, which means identifying a specific legal reason and, in nearly every case, proving it before a judge. The accelerated paper-only possession procedure that accompanied Section 21 has gone with it.
Can I still let a room in my own home without all these rules?
Yes. A lodger arrangement, where you live in the property and share it with the occupier, falls outside the assured tenancy regime as an excluded licence. That means the Renters' Rights Act possession rules do not apply, and you do not need a court order to end the arrangement, only reasonable notice. The important thing is to use the correct document, because papering a lodger with a full residential tenancy can accidentally hand them security of tenure you never intended. A dedicated excluded-licence agreement keeps the arrangement on the right side of that line.
How often can I increase the rent?
Once a year, and only through the statutory Section 13 procedure. You serve the prescribed notice on the current Form 4A, giving at least two months' notice before the increase takes effect. Any rent-review clause in an older agreement, including fixed annual uplifts or index-linked formulas, no longer has legal effect. If the tenant considers the proposed figure excessive, they can refer it to the First-tier Tribunal, which can decide what a reasonable market rent would be. Plan increases around this single annual route rather than relying on anything written into the original tenancy.
Do these changes apply across the whole UK?
No. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 applies to England only. Scotland reformed its private rented sector earlier under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016, which already removed no-fault evictions and fixed end dates. Wales operates its own framework under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, with its own notice periods. If your property is in Scotland or Wales, the abolition of the AST and Section 21 described here does not govern your tenancy, and you should work from the relevant national rules instead.