Deed of Assignment of Tenancy | Section 15 HA 1988

A deed of assignment of tenancy is the formal transfer of an existing tenant's legal interest under a tenancy agreement to a new tenant, leaving the tenancy on foot rather than terminating it. The person leaving is the assignor; the person taking over is the assignee. Everything that was part of the original tenancy passes across: the rent level, the term, the repairing obligations, the deposit arrangements and any conditions the landlord imposed at the outset.

People confuse assignment with two neighbours, and the difference matters. Assignment is not subletting. A sublet creates a fresh, separate tenancy underneath the existing one, so the original tenant stays liable to the landlord and becomes a landlord themselves to the subtenant. Assignment hands the whole interest over and, where the outgoing tenant is properly released, ends their exposure. Assignment is also not surrender and regrant, where the old tenancy is extinguished and a brand-new one created, which can reset deposit protection deadlines and trigger fresh compliance duties. The assignment route keeps the original tenancy alive, which is usually what the parties actually want. Because a tenancy is an interest in land, a valid assignment of anything other than a very short tenancy must be made by deed, not by a simple signed agreement, which is exactly why this document takes the form it does and why our assured shorthold tenancy agreement template and this deed are designed to sit alongside each other.

Assignment of a residential tenancy in England sits on two statutory pillars. The first is the Housing Act 1988, which governs assured and assured shorthold tenancies. Section 15 of the Housing Act 1988 provides that the landlord's consent to an assignment is required unless the tenancy agreement says otherwise, which would be unusual. For most periodic assured tenancies the statutory position imports an absolute or qualified prohibition on assignment without consent, so the outgoing tenant cannot simply hand the keys and the contract to someone else and walk away. The landlord is entitled to know who is living in the property and to vet the incoming tenant much as they would a new applicant.

The second pillar is the Law of Property Act 1925. Section 52(1) requires that conveyances of land or any interest in land be made by deed to be effective at law, and a tenancy is an interest in land. Section 54(2) carves out a narrow exception for the creation of leases for a term not exceeding three years at the best rent, but the safe and standard practice for assignment is still a properly executed deed, signed, witnessed and delivered. An assignment attempted by informal agreement risks being void at law, leaving the original tenant still on the hook and the new occupier with no recognised legal interest.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 is the backdrop that makes 2026 different. The Act changed most private tenancies into periodic assured tenancies on 1 May 2026, and an assured shorthold tenancy is now a type of assured tenancy that survives only where a valid section 21 or section 8 notice was served before that date. Practically, the document you are assigning is almost always an assured periodic tenancy, and the deed should describe it as such rather than clinging to outdated "fixed-term AST" language. Landlords and tenants who want the underlying statute can read the full text on the official record at the UK government's published Renters' Rights Act 2025. A clean assignment also protects the deposit position: because the tenancy continues, the existing deposit protection and prescribed information generally carry over, but the parties should confirm this expressly rather than assume it, a point our deposit receipt and prescribed information template helps document.

The most common trigger is a change in a shared household. Three friends take a joint tenancy, one gets a job in another city, and the remaining two want a replacement to take over the departing tenant's share rather than start a fresh agreement that resets everyone's position. Assignment lets the incoming flatmate inherit the existing tenancy on the same terms, with the landlord's blessing recorded in writing.

Relationship breakdown is the next frequent scenario. When a couple holding a joint tenancy separates and one partner intends to stay, an assignment can transfer the leaving partner's interest to the one who remains, releasing the departing tenant from future rent liability. Without a properly drafted release, a tenant who has moved out can remain jointly and severally liable for rent they are not paying. That single point is the reason this deed earns its place.

Business and estate-planning situations make up much of the rest. A sole trader running a small operation from a let property may assign on a change of personnel, and personal arrangements between family members sometimes call for the same mechanism, which is where a clear paper trail like our private loan agreement template for family and friends shows its value when money has changed hands alongside the move. One edge case worth flagging: where the tenancy agreement contains an absolute bar on assignment, the landlord can refuse for any reason or none, and no deed will cure that. Another is the death of a tenant, which is succession, not assignment, and follows a separate statutory route entirely.

• The identification of the parties names the landlord, the assignor and the assignee in full, together with the address of the property and the date and type of the original tenancy. Getting the tenancy description right matters more than it looks, because referring to an "assured shorthold tenancy" where the let is now an assured periodic tenancy can cast doubt on what is actually being transferred.
• The operative transfer is the clause that does the legal work, assigning all the assignor's right, title and interest in the tenancy to the assignee from a stated date. It is drafted in conveyancing language precisely because section 52 Law of Property Act 1925 requires a deed to pass a legal interest in land.
• The landlord's consent is recorded on the face of the deed, satisfying the requirement under section 15 Housing Act 1988 and removing any later argument that the assignment breached the tenancy. The landlord signs as a party so the consent cannot be challenged as informal or conditional.
• The release of the outgoing tenant discharges the assignor from liabilities accruing after the assignment date, which is the protection a departing joint tenant most needs. The clause is careful to separate past liabilities, which may survive, from future ones, which the release extinguishes.
• The assignee's covenants bind the new tenant to observe the tenancy terms going forward, including rent, repair and use, so the landlord steps into a relationship with the incoming tenant on the same footing as before.
• The deposit and inventory acknowledgement confirms how the protected deposit is treated on assignment and references the agreed schedule of condition, a record our tenancy inventory and schedule of condition template is built to support at check-in and check-out.

This deed is drafted for England, where the Renters' Rights Act 2025 reforms came into force on 1 May 2026 and where the Housing Act 1988 framework for assured tenancies applies. The assured periodic tenancy is now the standard private residential let, and any assignment should be described against that model rather than the pre-reform fixed-term AST. Landlords in England should also remember that the wider compliance regime travels with the tenancy on assignment: the How to Rent guide, gas safety records and the Energy Performance Certificate position do not reset, but the parties should confirm the incoming tenant is brought into the loop.

Wales operates a separate system entirely. The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 replaced the assured shorthold tenancy with the "occupation contract" and the "contract-holder", and assignment of a Welsh occupation contract follows that Act's own rules and formalities rather than the Housing Act 1988. A deed written for England should not be used unamended for a Welsh property, and anyone letting across the border needs documents drawn to the right jurisdiction.

For lettings of a room in the landlord's own home, assignment is rarely the right tool, because a lodger under an excluded licence does not hold an assignable tenancy interest at all. That arrangement is governed by the licence itself, and our lodger agreement template for excluded occupiers explains why the route differs. Treating a licence as if it were an assignable tenancy is a common and costly mistake.

You start by identifying the property and the original tenancy, selecting whether it is an assured periodic tenancy or a surviving assured shorthold tenancy, so the deed describes the correct interest. From there you enter the names and addresses of the landlord, the outgoing tenant and the incoming tenant, and the date the assignment is to take effect. The template then prompts you to confirm the landlord's consent, which is recorded in the deed itself rather than in a separate letter, and to set out whether the outgoing tenant is being fully released from future liabilities.

You then deal with the practical handovers: the deposit, the inventory and any rent apportionment on the assignment date. The form guides you through the execution block, because a deed must be signed by each party in the presence of a witness who also signs, and delivered. Once completed you download the finished deed in Word and PDF, ready to print, sign and witness. If you are also putting fresh terms in place for the incoming tenant, the wider catalogue at our full UK document library covers the supporting paperwork.

The first and most damaging error is treating an assignment as an informal swap. Tenants sometimes agree between themselves that one will "take over" the tenancy, the new occupier starts paying rent, and nobody executes a deed. The law does not recognise that as a valid assignment of a legal interest, and worse, if the landlord knowingly accepts rent from the newcomer, a court may infer that the old tenancy was surrendered and a new one granted, which resets deposit deadlines and compliance duties the landlord may not have met. The second mistake is omitting or fudging the landlord's consent. Because section 15 Housing Act 1988 makes consent the gateway, an assignment in breach of an absolute or qualified covenant can amount to a breach of the tenancy and expose the tenant to possession proceedings.

The third recurring error is forgetting the release. A departing joint tenant who signs over their interest but is never expressly released can stay liable for rent that accrues after they have gone, sometimes for years. The fourth is using pre-reform "fixed-term AST" wording in 2026, which no longer reflects how most tenancies are classified and can muddy what is being transferred. The fifth is botched execution: a deed that is signed but not witnessed, or not delivered, may fail the formalities under section 52 Law of Property Act 1925. Get the description, the consent, the release and the execution right, and the deed does its job.