Challenging a rent increase: the notice figure is now the only number that matters
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LonRes Research · Renters’ Rights Act
In 126 rent determinations under the Renters’ Rights Act, the tribunal has not once set a rent above the figure on the landlord’s notice. It cannot. What it can do is land exactly on that figure, and it now does so in 35.7% of cases, against 14.6% in the same months a year ago.
The number an agent puts on a section 13 notice, the statutory form that proposes a new rent, is no longer an opening position. It is the ceiling, and increasingly it is the answer.
0 of 126
Renters’ Rights Act rent determinations set above the landlord’s notice, 24 June to 30 September 2026
What changed when the Act came in?
The tribunal lost the power to make a tenant worse off for challenging.
Before 1 May 2026, a tenant who referred a rent increase could be told to pay more than the landlord had asked for. Under the Act the tribunal cannot go above the notice figure, however far below market it considers the rent to be.
LonRes has read every Renters’ Rights Act rent decision published on the tribunal register, one by one: 136 cases decided between 24 June and 30 September 2026, of which 126 set a rent. Those are measured against 128 cases decided in the same calendar weeks of 2025, of which 123 set a rent. The first decision under the Act was not issued until 24 June, which is why the comparison starts there. It stops at 30 September because the register publishes decisions four to six weeks after they are made, so more recent months are still filling in.
Decisions are still being published for the period, so these figures will move. LonRes re-runs the analysis as new cases appear and the updated numbers go to newsletter subscribers first.
The deterrent has gone, and tenants have noticed. UK Google searches for “challenge a rent increase” are up 150% year on year, “challenge rent increase” up 120% and “rent increase tribunal” up 133%. The fee is £47, more than nine in ten cases are decided on paper, and the worst available outcome is the rent the landlord already proposed.
UK Google searches, year on year. Source: Google Keyword Planner, United Kingdom, average monthly searches October 2025 to September 2026 against the preceding twelve months.
How often does the landlord get the rent they asked for?
More often than a year ago, and this is the clearest movement in the data.
How tribunal outcomes have changed
Share of rent determinations by outcome, 24 June to 30 September 2025 against the same weeks of 2026. Scale 0% to 70%.
Rent set above the landlord’s notice
The ceiling. Under the Act the tribunal cannot go above the notice figure.
Rent set exactly at the notice
Partial increase, below the notice
The negotiated middle. On this sample, the strongest finding in the set.
No increase at all
Hollow dot: 2025, under the old rules. Filled dot: 2026, under the Renters’ Rights Act.
Source: LonRes analysis of First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) rent determinations. 123 determinations in 2025 and 126 in 2026. Data to 30 September 2026.
Eight of the twelve 2025 above-notice cases were housing associations, where a below-market formula rent is referred and the tribunal must find the market figure. For private landlords it was four cases in 123.
Under the Act, the tribunal set the rent at exactly the figure in the landlord’s notice in 35.7% of cases. A year ago it was 14.6%. More than a third of landlords now get precisely what they asked for, against about one in seven before.
Part of that is the new limit. Cases that would once have been pushed above the notice now stop at it instead. But that explains less than half the rise. Under the old rules, 9.8% of decisions came back above the notice, while the at-notice share has risen by 21 percentage points.
The rest has come from the opposite direction: rents that a year ago would have been set somewhere below the notice are now being set at it.
Get the notice right and it is what you are awarded. Get it wrong and it is what you are stuck with.
Where has the negotiated middle gone?
It has collapsed, from 65.0% of outcomes to 41.3%. On this sample it is the strongest finding in the set.
A year ago the usual result was a landing somewhere between the old rent and the proposed one. That is now the minority outcome. Cases increasingly resolve at one of the two ends: the landlord gets the full ask, or the tenant pays nothing more at all.
Better than one tenant in five, 23.0%, now comes away with no increase, against roughly one in ten a year ago. For an agent advising a landlord, that is the risk that has changed. The downside of a badly judged notice is no longer a smaller increase. It is often no increase.
What does the tribunal actually award?
A median increase of 5.3% on the existing rent, against a median 9.8% sought. The landlords who reach a determination ask for about ten and get about five.
Increase on the existing rent, 2026 determinations. Shaded: the middle half of awards, between 1.2% and 11.3%. Scale 0% to 12%. Source: LonRes analysis of First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) rent determinations, 24 June to 30 September 2026. Data to 30 September 2026.
The spread matters more than the midpoint. A quarter were awarded 1.2% or less. A quarter were awarded more than 11.3%.
One caution before those figures travel. They describe the notices that were challenged, not notices in general. A landlord whose increase is accepted never appears in this data.
That selection also explains a figure that looks dramatic on its own. Landlords sought a median 23.8% increase in 2025 and 9.8% now. That is unlikely to be landlords moderating. Under the old rules only a tenant facing a very large increase had reason to risk a referral. Now a tenant facing a modest one has no reason not to.
What does this mean for pricing a section 13 notice?
The figure on the notice is both the most you can get and the thing you are held to.
Ask for less than the property is worth and the tribunal has no power to correct it upwards, so your own low figure becomes the rent. Ask for more than the evidence supports and you invite a challenge that suspends the increase for months and may end in nothing at all.
Asking too little is the quieter of the two risks, and it is now permanent.
| Tribunal’s assessment in good condition | £1,100 a month |
| Deducted for windows that could not be unlocked, poor kitchen fittings, the heating and the tenant’s own white goods | £130 |
| Open market rent | £970 |
| Proposed in the landlord’s notice | £880 |
| Rent fixed | £880 |
The rent was fixed at £880, because that is as high as the tribunal is allowed to go. The notice cost that landlord £90 a month, a little over £1,000 a year, on a property the tribunal had just valued higher.
Two more show the range. In Haverstock Hill, NW3, a tenant was paying £1,876 and the landlord asked £2,100. The tribunal valued the flat at £2,340 after deductions and set the rent at £2,100, the notice figure, costing the landlord £240 a month. In Dagenham, RM10, the landlord asked £2,400 against an existing £1,200 and was awarded £2,250, an 87.5% increase. Challenging does not mean winning.
So the notice has to stand up on its own, on the day it is served. That means achieved rents rather than asking prices: recent lettings of comparable property showing:
- the rent actually agreed
- the date it let
- the condition it was in
- any adjustments explained.
Tribunals give asking prices little weight, and say so in their decisions.
Price it to the evidence, not to the ambition.
Pricing a rent increase you can evidence
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The agents who contribute lettings data get the data back. That is the whole point.
Rental Checker
The evidence base a section 13 notice is judged against, in the form the tribunal asks for.
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Frequently asked questions
Can a tribunal increase your rent above what the landlord asked for?
No. Under the Renters’ Rights Act the First-tier Tribunal cannot set a rent higher than the figure in the landlord’s section 13 notice. In 126 determinations analysed by LonRes between 24 June and 30 September 2026, not one rent was set above the notice. In the same months of 2025, under the old rules, 9.8% came back higher.
How often does a tenant win at a rent tribunal?
In 23.0% of 2026 determinations the tenant came away with no increase at all, against 10.6% in the same months of 2025. A further 41.3% received a partial increase below the landlord’s proposed figure. Only 8.8% of cases went to an oral hearing.
How much does the tribunal usually add to the rent?
The median increase awarded was 5.3% on the existing rent, against a median 9.8% sought. A quarter of cases were awarded 1.2% or less and a quarter more than 11.3%, on LonRes analysis of 126 determinations decided between 24 June and 30 September 2026.
What evidence does the tribunal want for a section 13 notice?
Achieved rents, not asking prices. The tribunal looks for recent lettings of comparable property showing the rent actually agreed, the date it let, the condition it was in, and any adjustments explained. Asking prices carry little weight and tribunals say so in their decisions.
Sources
- Tribunal outcomes, 2026 and 2025 – LonRes analysis of First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) rent determinations published at gov.uk/residential-property-tribunal-decisions. Register read to 27 October 2026. 136 cases decided 24 June to 30 September 2026, of which 126 set a rent; 128 cases decided 24 June to 30 September 2025, of which 123 set a rent. Regime assigned by the date of the landlord’s section 13 notice, not by filing code.
- Statistical testing – at-notice difference p = 0.00014; collapse in partial increases p = 0.00022; above-notice difference p = 0.00016; no-increase difference p = 0.011, all Fisher exact test. Median differences p < 0.0001, Mann-Whitney U. Six tests were run, so a Bonferroni correction sets the threshold at 0.0083; the first three clear it and the no-increase finding does not.
- Landlord type – established for all twelve 2025 above-notice determinations; eight are registered providers. Removing those eight from the numerator while keeping every case in the denominator gives four of 123 against zero in 2026, p = 0.058. Landlord type is not coded for the remainder of either sample.
- Known gaps – a further 25 eligible 2025 decisions were excluded because the tribunal published only a bare decision form, omitting the existing rent and the notice rent. 21 of the 25 are Manchester region cases, where this is standard practice, so the 2025 sample is weighted towards London.
- Cases cited – HAV/00HB/MRA/2026/0031 (Bristol); LON/00AG/MRA/2026/0088 (Haverstock Hill NW3); LON/00AB/MRA/2026/0035 (Dagenham RM10). All on the GOV.UK register.
- Search demand – Google Keyword Planner, United Kingdom, average monthly searches October 2025 to September 2026 against the preceding twelve months.
- Tribunal application fee – First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), form MR1, Apply for a determination of an open market rent (08.26), GOV.UK: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69f33660161a319cff4fbb64/MR1_0526.pdf
- Queries on the method: research@lonres.com.
- Earlier LonRes analysis – Ask low, stay low: the first 47 rent tribunal decisions under the Renters’ Rights Act, September 2026.