Section 13 Notices, Checked Before You Serve Them

This feature is not yet available. The date-checking engine described below is built, but the in-product surface — the button on the tenancy that generates the notice — has not shipped yet. This entry originally described it as live; we are correcting that here rather than removing the article, because the design intent is accurate and we expect to ship it shortly.

Why this matters

Since the Renters' Rights Act 2025, a section 13 notice on the prescribed Form 4A is the route for increasing rent on an assured periodic tenancy. Rent-review clauses in the agreement no longer do the job.

A section 13 notice is also unusually easy to get wrong, because the rules are about dates, not about the amount. Serve it with too little notice, too soon after the last increase, or with the new rent starting mid-period, and the notice is defective. The tenant can ignore it, and you find out months later that you have been under-charging with no lawful way to correct it retrospectively.

What this will do

Generate a completed Form 4A rent-increase notice from the tenancy, pre-filled with the property, the parties, the current rent and the tenancy start date.

Before anything is generated, we check the notice against the statutory requirements set out in the form's own notes:

1. At least two months' notice. The new rent cannot start sooner than two months after the notice is served.
2. At least 52 weeks since the last increase. Measured from the tenancy start date for a first increase, or from the last increase after that.
3. The new rent must start at the beginning of a rent period. For a monthly tenancy that means the same day of the month the tenancy began; for a weekly tenancy, the same weekday.

If any of those fail, you are told which one and why — before the document is produced and before you are charged. You are never billed for a notice a tribunal could strike out.

Weekly rent periods

Weekly tenancies are now handled properly. The rent period is read from the tenancy itself rather than assumed to be monthly, which matters twice over: the third check above uses the weekly rule instead of the monthly one, and the served notice states the correct frequency. Previously a weekly tenancy was checked against the wrong rule and issued a notice that described itself as monthly — a contradiction on the face of the document.

If your tenancy is weekly, set the rent period on the tenancy and the rest follows.

Get the dates right before you serve, not after. This feature is coming soon.

How it will work

1. Open the property and go to the tenancy
2. Start a rent increase, and enter the proposed rent and the date it should take effect
3. If the dates do not satisfy the rules, you will see exactly what is wrong — adjust and try again
4. Once valid, the Form 4A notice is generated as a PDF, ready to serve

What we do not do for you

We check the dates. We do not check the figure. Whether your proposed rent is at market rate is a judgement call, and the tenant can refer the increase to the First-tier Tribunal if they disagree with it — so the amount is worth evidencing before you serve.

For the full background on how section 13 works and what happens if a tenant challenges it, see our section 13 rent increase guide. For the three date rules above set out in full, with worked examples of each one failing, see how a Form 4A notice becomes invalid.

This is general information, not legal advice.