Do I pay the old or the new rent while my challenge is at the tribunal?

You have done the hard part. The Section 13 notice landed, you checked it, you decided the proposed rent was too high, and you referred it to the First-tier Tribunal before the deadline. Now you are waiting. And almost immediately a very ordinary, very practical question arrives: when the rent is due next week, which figure do I actually pay?

It sounds like it should have an obvious answer. It does not, because most tenants are never told, and the landlord usually expects the new amount. So people either overpay out of caution, underpay and worry about arrears, or freeze and pay nothing while they work it out. All three are avoidable. Let us settle it.

The short version

Keep paying the old rent.

That is the safe answer in almost every situation. You do not pay the new proposed figure while the challenge is being decided, and you absolutely do not stop paying rent altogether. The rent that is properly due during the challenge is the existing rent, so that is what you pay, on time, every time, exactly as before.

The reason that works, and the small extra step you may need under the old rules, depends on one thing: the date your notice was served.

If your notice was served on or after 1 May 2026 (Form 4A)

This is the straightforward case, and it is good news.

Under the rules that came in on 1 May 2026, when a Section 13 increase is challenged, the rent stays at the old figure for the whole time the tribunal is dealing with it. The new rent does not start until the date the tribunal actually makes its decision, and it is not backdated to the date the landlord wanted.

So in practice:

• You keep paying the old rent, unchanged, while you wait.
• If the tribunal decides the rent should go up, that new rent starts from the decision date, not before.
• You begin paying the new figure from your next normal rent payment after the decision.
• There is no lump of back rent to find, because nothing is backdated.

You do not need to set anything aside or do any clever budgeting. The old rent is the rent. Pay it as normal and wait for the decision.

If your notice was served before 1 May 2026 (the old Form 4 rules)

A notice served under the old regime works differently, and this is where a little care pays off.

Under the old rules, if the tribunal upholds an increase, it can set the new rent to run from the proposed start date in the notice, which is in the past by the time the decision comes through. So if you have only been paying the old rent, you could owe the difference for the months in between.

That does not mean you should start paying the new figure now. It means you use the save-the-difference method:

1. Keep paying the old rent on time, as your properly due rent.
2. Each month, put the difference between the old rent and the proposed new rent into a separate account or pot.
3. When the tribunal decides, you have the back amount ready. If the increase is upheld and backdated, you settle it in one payment from the pot. If it is reduced or thrown out, the money was yours all along.

This keeps you out of arrears, keeps your cash in your own hands until the last possible moment, and means a backdated decision never becomes a sudden crisis.

The one thing you must not do

Do not withhold rent.

It is tempting to think that paying nothing puts pressure on the landlord, or that you should not pay while the rent is in dispute. Neither is true, and both are dangerous. Unpaid rent is arrears, full stop, and arrears can give a landlord grounds to seek possession no matter how strong your rent challenge is. You would be trading a good challenge for a bad arrears problem.

Challenging the increase and paying your rent are two separate things. You can fight the increase to the hilt and still pay the existing rent on the dot, and that is exactly what you should do.

If money is genuinely tight and even the old rent is a stretch, that is a real issue, but the answer is to get advice and look at your options, not to withhold. Withholding is the one move that can turn the whole situation against you.

If you have already paid the new rent by mistake

It happens. The landlord sends the new figure, the standing order gets changed, and a payment or two goes out at the higher amount before you realise.

If your notice was a Form 4A served on or after 1 May 2026, the old rent was the rent legally due during the challenge, so anything you paid above that is an overpayment. You can:

• Write to the landlord setting out the overpayment and asking them to refund it or credit it against future rent.
• Switch your payment straight back to the old figure.
• Amend any standing order or direct debit that is still set to the new amount, so it stops overpaying automatically.

Keep a record of what you paid and when. If the landlord refuses to put it right, an overpayment can be reclaimed like any other money owed, and our guide on reclaiming overpaid rent walks through that route.

Two small admin jobs that save a lot of grief

Before you go back to waiting, do two quick things.

First, email your landlord. One or two lines is plenty: while the rent increase is being decided by the tribunal, you will continue to pay the existing rent, and this is not a refusal to pay or a withholding of rent. That single sentence kills any later suggestion that you were in arrears.

Second, check your bank. Open the banking app, find the standing order, and make sure it is paying the old amount. If it is, leave it. If it has been changed to the new figure, change it back. This is the most common way tenants overpay without meaning to, and it takes thirty seconds to fix.

The bottom line

While your Section 13 challenge is with the tribunal, you keep paying the old rent, on time, every month. Under the post-1-May-2026 rules that is the whole story, because nothing is backdated. Under the old pre-May rules, you do the same but set the difference aside so a backdated decision never catches you short. You never withhold rent, and you never assume the new figure is due before the tribunal has said so.

Pay the rent that is properly due, keep your records clean, and let the challenge run its course. If you want a second pair of eyes on whether your notice was valid in the first place, that free check is still the fastest way to know where you stand.