Direct answer
The Renters' Rights Act gives letting agents in England an evidence problem more than a paperwork one: for each tenancy you need to be able to show what was said to whom, when, and what was done. The new tenancy rules started on 1 May 2026, and registration on the landlord database opens region by region from 15 December 2026.
Every landlord must be registered by 14 November 2027. Councils can impose civil penalties of up to £7,000 for initial or minor non-compliance and up to £40,000 for serious or repeated breaches.
Most of the records you need already exist somewhere: in the agency CRM, in someone's inbox, on a portal, in a WhatsApp thread. The work is deciding which system holds each record, who keeps it up to date, and how you would pull a full history for one tenancy without the person who handled it. The checklist below maps each record to a home.
This guide is not legal advice; the GOV.UK guide to the Renters' Rights Act is the starting point. We build the record-keeping. Your solicitor or Propertymark confirms what the Act requires of you.
What changed, and when
If you followed it as the Renters' Rights Bill, the Act received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. The government is bringing it in in phases. This guide covers the private rented sector in England.
Swipe or scroll to compare the columns.
| Date | What happens | Source (checked 24 Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 May 2026 | New tenancy system for all private tenancies: section 21 abolished, assured periodic tenancies, rent increases once a year by section 13 notice with at least two months' notice, asking rent published and no offers above it, rent in advance limited, no discrimination against tenants with children or on benefits | GOV.UK guide; GOV.UK landlord checklist |
| By 31 May 2026 | Existing tenants with a written agreement get the government information sheet; tenants on a verbal agreement get a written statement of the key terms instead | GOV.UK news, 20 Mar 2026 |
| 15 December 2026 | "Register your rental property" service opens, starting in the West Midlands and rolling out to other areas over 12 months; landlords in each region get three months to sign up | GOV.UK news, 9 Sep 2026 |
| By 14 November 2027 | Every landlord actively letting property registered; agents and landlords put registration numbers on adverts | GOV.UK news, 9 Sep 2026 |
| Later phase, date not set on the pages we read | PRS Landlord Ombudsman | GOV.UK guide |
On penalties, the GOV.UK guide gives up to £7,000 for minor or initial breaches and up to £40,000 for serious, persistent or repeated ones, or prosecution with an unlimited fine. Breaking the rent-in-advance rule carries up to £5,000. The government's landlord checklist adds that a Rent Repayment Order can require up to two years' rent to be repaid. The guide also says penalties reach anyone acting on a landlord's behalf, and that landlords who use an agent stay responsible for their own duties. Agents carry risk on both sides.
The checklist: each record, where it lives, who keeps it
The Act doesn't hand agents a single list of records to keep. It creates duties, and each duty is far easier to show you met if there's a dated record behind it. The table maps those records to the kind of system that usually holds them. Adjust the "where" column to your own tools, and put a name, not a team, in the last column.
Swipe or scroll to compare the columns.
| Record | What it shows | Where it should live | Who keeps it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Each advert, with the asking rent, the date and the portals it went to | The rent was published | Portal export saved against the property in the CRM | Lettings negotiator |
| Every offer received and the rent agreed | No offer above the asking rent was invited or accepted | Applicant and offer records in the CRM | Lettings negotiator |
| Rent in advance requested, the amount, and the dates of signing and of payment | It was no more than one month (or 28 days) and taken after signing | CRM tenancy record, matched to the client account | Accounts or lettings administrator |
| Applicant decisions and the reason for each | No refusal because a tenant has children or receives benefits | CRM applicant record, reason chosen from a fixed list plus a note | Lettings manager |
| Information sheet or written statement: version, date and how it was sent | The 31 May 2026 duty, and written terms for new tenancies | Document store, linked from the tenancy; the sent email logged | Property manager |
| Pet requests: date received, any request for more information, the written decision and reasons | A reply in writing within 28 days, and a fair reason for any refusal | Email logged to the tenancy; decision letter in the document store | Property manager, with the landlord's instruction attached |
| Rent increase notices: date served, date effective, date of the last increase | Once a year, with at least two months' notice, in the prescribed form | Document store, with the dates on the CRM tenancy | Property manager |
| Repair reports and complaints, with the response and completion dates | What was reported and what was done | Maintenance or property management tool | Property manager |
| Possession notices and the evidence for the ground used | The notice was in the prescribed form and the ground is met | Document store, in one folder per case | Lettings manager, with the solicitor |
| Landlord registration number per property, and the date it was checked | Adverts carry the number; most possession grounds need registration | CRM property record | Lettings administrator |
| Landlord instructions on rent, pets, repairs and possession | Who decided what, and when | Email logged to the property, or a note on the CRM | Whoever took the instruction |
The pet timescale comes from the GOV.UK tenant guide: the landlord has 28 days to respond in writing, and if they ask for more information, the remainder of the 28 days or an extra seven days, whichever is later.
What Reapit, Alto and Arthur hold, and what falls between them
Agency CRMs such as Reapit, Alto and Arthur Online are built around properties, applicants, tenancies and landlords, so the core records in the checklist have an obvious home in whichever one you use. We haven't audited each product's Renters' Rights features, and they change with every release, so check yours against the list rather than relying on a summary.
The records that get lost are usually the ones that start outside the CRM:
- Portal enquiries and offers that arrive by email or phone and are never logged against the applicant.
- Pet requests and repair reports sent to a negotiator's personal inbox or by WhatsApp.
- Landlord instructions given on a call, with no note.
- Notices drafted in Word, sent from Outlook and saved to a shared drive under someone's own naming scheme.
- Advert history, which often lives only on the portal until someone saves it.
None of that needs new software. It needs a rule for where each thing goes, and a way for the thing to get there without someone remembering to move it.
Keeping one audit trail across those tools
An audit trail is useful when anyone in the office can produce the full history of one tenancy in a few minutes. Four habits get most agencies there:
- One reference per tenancy. Use the CRM's tenancy ID in email subjects, document names and folder names. Everything else hangs off it.
- Log email automatically. Many CRMs can file email against a record from a shared address or a mailbox sync; check whether yours does. Where a message arrives in the wrong inbox, a simple rule forwards it to the shared address with the reference added.
- Bring the edges in. Portal leads, WhatsApp messages and web forms can be pushed into the CRM by an integration, so the record exists even when nobody types it. Where the message needs a judgement (is this a pet request or a general question?), an AI step can suggest the category and a person confirms it.
- Date-driven reminders. Rules can watch the dates that matter: 28 days on a pet request, a year since the last rent increase, the registration window for each landlord's region. The reminder goes to the named person, and the record shows when it was dealt with.
Then test it. Once a quarter, pick three tenancies at random and ask someone who didn't handle them to pull the full history. Time it, and note what was missing. That's your list of fixes.
What to ask your software provider
Before you build anything, ask your CRM provider these questions in writing and keep the answers:
- Can the system store the asking rent per advert, every offer, and the accepted rent, with dates?
- Does it hold the landlord registration number per property, and can it add it to portal feeds?
- Can it record the date and method each information sheet or written statement was sent?
- Is there a way to track pet requests, rent increases and possession cases against the 28-day, annual and notice-period dates?
- Which email, portal and messaging channels log automatically, and which need a manual step?
- Is there an audit log of who changed what and when, and can we export it?
- Can we export the full record for one tenancy, including documents, as a single file?
- Is there an API, so missing pieces can be connected rather than typed?
Where the answer is "no" and the gap matters, the fix is usually small: an integration that files the missing records into the CRM, a reminder rule, or a simple records view that pulls the tenancy history into one place.
Limitations
Dates, duties and penalty amounts were checked on GOV.UK pages on 24 October 2026. Guidance and secondary legislation are still being published, and regional registration dates may change. This checklist describes record-keeping, not what the law requires of a particular agency or landlord.
