Under the Renters’ Rights Act, a tenant who wants to dispute a rent increase can take it to tribunal for a fee of £47. That figure — small enough to be almost incidental for most tenants — has quietly changed the calculus around how landlords should approach rent increases from here on.
Why the fee matters more than it looks. Before this system, challenging a rent increase involved enough friction — cost, time, uncertainty about the process — that many tenants who felt an increase was unfair simply paid it rather than disputing it. A £47 fee removes almost all of that friction. Goodlord’s research on tenant behaviour under the new rules suggests that roughly one in five tenants say they would challenge a rent increase at tribunal regardless of whether they actually believed it was unfair, simply because the downside of trying is so low.
That statistic is worth sitting with. It means a meaningful proportion of rent increases served under Form 4A should now be expected to face at least the possibility of a challenge, independent of whether the figure itself was reasonable. The days of setting a number and assuming it will simply be accepted are largely over.
What a tribunal actually looks at. When a rent increase is challenged, the tribunal’s job is to determine what the property could achieve on the open market — not what the landlord would like to charge, and not necessarily what similar properties are advertised at, but what they’re actually achieving once let. A tribunal that finds the proposed increase exceeds open market rent can reduce it, and there’s no guarantee the reduced figure will simply match what was requested minus a small margin.
What this means practically for landlords. The response isn’t to stop increasing rent, or to under-price out of caution. It’s to be able to evidence the figure properly before serving the notice. That means gathering genuinely comparable local lets — not just similar-looking properties, but ones that have actually let recently at the rents being compared — and being honest about the current condition of your own property relative to those comparables. A property that hasn’t been updated in several years doesn’t automatically command the same rent as a freshly renovated equivalent, however similar the address.
A practical habit worth building in. Before serving any Form 4A notice, spend an afternoon pulling together the comparable evidence — screenshot recent lets in the immediate area, note the property specifications, and keep a dated record of the research alongside the notice itself. If a challenge does come, having that evidence ready from the outset is far stronger than trying to assemble it retrospectively once a tribunal date is already set.
Forty-seven pounds is a small number to change so much behaviour, but it has. Treating every rent increase as something that might need to be defended, rather than something that will simply be accepted, is the sensible baseline now.
General information, not legal advice. Property Lounge, Guildford.
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