Section 13 rent increase notices: the complete guide for renters

A Section 13 notice is the formal document a landlord must use to increase the rent on an assured periodic tenancy in England. The name comes from Section 13 of the Housing Act 1988, the law that sets out the procedure.

Since 1 May 2026, when the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force, this is the only route to a rent increase. Rent review clauses in tenancy agreements no longer have any effect, and fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies have been converted into periodic (rolling) assured tenancies. If your landlord wants to charge more, they must serve you a Section 13 notice on the prescribed form, Form 4A, and follow the rules that come with it. We cover what the Renters’ Rights Act changed about rent increases in a separate guide.

That is genuinely useful to know as a renter. The rules are specific, the form is prescribed by law, and a notice that gets a key requirement wrong is invalid. An invalid notice does not increase your rent, however official it looks. Your current rent simply carries on until your landlord serves a notice that does comply.

Section 13 comes with built-in limits on timing and frequency:

• Once a year at most. Your rent cannot be increased again within 12 months of the last increase.
• Not in the first year. A new tenancy cannot have its rent increased within the first 12 months.
• At least 2 months’ notice. The date the new rent starts must be at least 2 months after the notice is served on you.
• On the right day. The new rent must start on the first day of a rent period. If you pay on the 1st of each month, a notice proposing a new rent from the 15th is defective.

If any of those conditions is not met, the notice does not take effect. These are not technicalities the tribunal waves through; they are the conditions Parliament set for a rent increase to be lawful.

For a Section 13 notice served today to be valid, all of the following need to be true:

1. It uses Form 4A, the prescribed form titled “Landlord’s notice proposing a new rent for assured tenancies in the private rented sector”. The older Form 4 stopped being valid for new notices on 1 May 2026.
2. The form is complete and unaltered. Every adult tenant named on the tenancy agreement should be named on the notice, the property address must be right, and the current and proposed rents must be stated accurately. The form includes guidance pages for the tenant, and serving a cut-down or edited version risks invalidity.
3. The notice period is at least 2 months from the date the notice was served (not the date it was written).
4. The start date lands on the first day of a rent period.
5. At least 12 months have passed since the last increase, or since the tenancy began if this is the first increase.
6. It was properly served on you, following any service rules in your tenancy agreement.

We explain the form itself in Form 4A, explained field by field.

If your notice was served before 1 May 2026, slightly different rules applied to it, including the old Form 4. Our check asks when your notice was served and applies the right set of rules automatically.

These are the errors we see most often, and each one is a ground to challenge:

• Wrong form. A landlord uses old Form 4, a letter, an email, or a text message instead of Form 4A. None of those can increase the rent on their own.
• Short notice. The start date is less than 2 months after service. Even one day short is a defect.
• Wrong start date. The new rent is set to begin mid-period rather than on the first day of a rent period.
• Too soon. The increase would take effect within 12 months of the last one.
• Wrong or missing names. A joint tenant is left off, or names do not match the tenancy agreement.
• Wrong figures. The current rent is stated incorrectly, which can throw the whole notice into doubt.
• Incomplete or altered form. Blank mandatory fields, missing pages, or a missing signature.
• Bad service. The notice went to the wrong address or was not served in line with the tenancy agreement’s requirements.

Many of these are honest mistakes rather than sharp practice. But the law does not distinguish: a defective notice does not raise your rent, and your landlord would need to start again with a fresh, valid notice.

Here is how the process runs when a notice is valid:

1. Day 0: the notice is served. The clock starts from the date you are served, not the date printed on the form.
2. The notice period runs. At least 2 months must pass before the proposed start date.
3. Your challenge window is open. If you want the tribunal to decide the rent, you must apply before the start date shown on the notice. Once that date passes, the route to challenge the amount is usually closed.
4. The start date arrives. If you have not challenged and the notice is valid, the new rent takes effect from that date.
5. If you applied to the tribunal, your current rent continues while the case is decided. Any increase the tribunal approves is not backdated.

The practical takeaway: do not sit on a notice. Two months sounds like plenty of time, but gathering evidence and deciding what to do is much easier in week one than in week eight.

There are two separate questions, and it pays to keep them apart:

1. Is the notice valid? If the notice has any of the defects above, it does not take legal effect. The usual first step is to write to your landlord, set out the defect, and explain that the current rent continues until a valid notice is served. You do not need a tribunal to point out that a notice is defective, though the tribunal can rule on validity where the two of you disagree.

2. Is the amount above the market rent? Even a perfectly valid notice can propose a rent that is higher than your home would realistically let for. In that case you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to decide the open-market rent. You apply using Form MR1, before the start date on your notice. The application fee is £47, there is no hearing fee, and help with fees is available if you are on a low income or certain benefits. Our guide to how much a landlord can increase rent covers where that ceiling sits.

Since 1 May 2026, challenging the amount carries no risk on the rent itself: the tribunal cannot set a figure higher than your landlord proposed. The number on your notice is the worst case.

Our free check covers both questions at once. It tests your notice against the validity rules and benchmarks the proposed rent against local market data, then tells you plainly whether you have grounds.

The First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) is not a court. It is a specialist panel that decides what the open-market rent for your property should be, based on evidence: rents for comparable properties nearby, the condition of your home, and anything that affects what it would let for.

Many cases are decided on the papers, without a hearing. You can ask for a hearing if you want one, and each side normally covers its own costs. The tribunal can confirm the proposed rent, set a lower figure, or in some cases (serious disrepair, for example) set a rent below what you currently pay.

We cover the full process, evidence, and timelines in our guide to the rent tribunal.

If the tribunal sets a rent, that figure becomes your new legal rent. It takes effect from the start date in the notice if the decision comes before that date; otherwise it applies from the next rent period after the decision. It is not backdated, so you do not owe a lump sum of back-rent for the months the case took. If the increase would cause serious financial difficulty, the tribunal can delay it by up to 2 months.

The decided figure also becomes the baseline for the future. Your landlord cannot serve another increase for at least 12 months, and the next increase builds on the tribunal’s figure, not the one your landlord originally wanted.

If you do nothing, the proposed rent simply takes effect on the start date, provided the notice is valid. Which is exactly why it is worth two minutes to check.