What recent rent tribunal decisions tell us about rent increases

The first rent decisions made under the Renters’ Rights Act rules are now being published. They give an early look at how the new rent ceiling works in practice and what happens when a proposed increase reaches the First-tier Tribunal.

They are useful evidence, but they need to be read carefully. A decision made after 1 May 2026 is not automatically a decision under the new rules. What matters is when the landlord served the rent increase notice.

Check your rent increase for free if you want to compare your own proposed rent with local market evidence before deciding what to do.

Why the first decisions need careful reading

The Renters’ Rights Act rent changes took effect on 1 May 2026. Since then, many tribunal decisions have been published, but a large number still relate to rent increase notices served before 1 May and are therefore decided under the previous rules.

This distinction matters because the new rules changed an important part of the risk for tenants. For a challenge to a proposed new rent under the current rules, the determined rent cannot be higher than the amount the landlord proposed.

LonRes, a property data business, reviewed the GOV.UK residential property tribunal decisions register and identified the first 47 published decisions that it considered genuinely fell under the new rules. They were decisions made between 24 June and 26 August 2026 and published by 2 September.

This is independent industry analysis, not an official government success-rate statistic. It is also an early set of cases, so it should not be used to predict what will happen in every challenge.

What it can do is show how some of the new legal rules are starting to work in real decisions.

What happened in the first 47 cases

According to the LonRes analysis, 45 of the first 47 cases reached a rent determination.

Of those 45 determinations:

• 21, or 47%, finished at the rent in the landlord’s notice
• 24, or 53%, finished below the proposed rent
• none finished above the proposed rent

Two of the 47 cases did not reach a rent determination because of issues with the notice.

The most interesting finding is not the 47% or 53% split. Those figures may change as many more cases are decided.

The more durable point is what happened in nine of the 45 determinations. In those cases, the tribunal considered the open market rent to be higher than the landlord had proposed, but the law required the lower proposed amount to remain the maximum.

That is the new rent ceiling working in practice.

It does not mean a tenant who challenges will get a reduction. It means the official decision can confirm the proposed rent or set a lower amount, but it cannot use the challenge to raise that proposed figure further.

The proposed rent is now a real ceiling

This changes the way a challenged increase works.

Imagine a landlord proposes £1,100 a month. The tribunal considers the open market rent to be £1,180. Under the current rules for a challenged proposed increase, the new rent cannot be set at £1,180. The landlord’s £1,100 figure is the ceiling.

If the tribunal instead considers the open market rent to be £1,020, the determined rent can be lower than the proposed £1,100.

That is why the percentage increase itself is not the key question. The tribunal still has to form a view about the open market rent for the particular property.

For tenants, the ceiling removes the risk that the tribunal will respond to a challenge by setting a rent above the landlord’s proposal. For landlords, it makes the figure placed on the notice important because an amount set too low cannot be corrected upwards through that determination.

None of this guarantees a reduction. A proposed rent that is well supported by market evidence may simply be confirmed.

Evidence still matters

The new ceiling does not remove the need to understand the market.

A separate LonRes review of 200 earlier market rent decisions found that 47% of the 169 decisions with published reasons disclosed at least one evidence problem. That included cases with limited comparable evidence, cases where at least one party submitted no evidence and cases where the tribunal relied on its own local knowledge.

That figure should not be read as saying that 47% of tenants failed to provide evidence. The analysis looked at the evidence available in the case as a whole and at the tribunal’s reasoning.

The useful lesson is simpler: market rent decisions are evidence-led, and the quality of the information in front of the decision-maker can matter.

The current MR1 application itself asks what you think the open market rent should be and whether you have evidence to support that figure. It also asks detailed questions about the home, including its rooms, condition, features, furniture, services and repairs.

Comparable rents are therefore part of the picture, but they are not the whole property assessment.

Asking rents and achieved rents are not the same thing

Many tenants and landlords start with property websites because that is the easiest place to see the current market. UpRently also uses live asking-rent listings supplied by PropertyData.

These are asking rents. They show what landlords or agents advertised a home for. They do not prove the final amount a tenant agreed to pay.

The Valuation Office Agency describes its own rental evidence differently. Its rent officers collect rents being paid from letting agents, landlords, tenants and other sources. That includes new and renewal rents that have actually been negotiated.

This distinction matters when you judge the strength of evidence.

Advertised rents can still help show what is currently being offered in the local market, especially when several close comparables point in the same direction. But they should not be described as verified achieved rents.

UpRently makes that limitation clear in the checker, methodology and Evidence Pack. A transparent advertised-rent comparison is more useful than pretending the data proves something it does not.

What the early decisions mean for you

If you are a tenant, the first decisions support three practical points.

First, a challenge does not create a route for the current decision-maker to set the new rent above the landlord’s proposed figure. Second, a reduction is not automatic. Third, the open market rent still has to be assessed using the property and the available market evidence.

If you are a landlord, the same decisions show why it is sensible to check the market before proposing a new rent. A figure that is above the evidence may be reduced. A figure below the decision-maker’s view of market rent cannot be increased above the amount on the notice through that determination.

For both sides, the useful question is not who usually wins. The evidence is far too early for a reliable national answer.

A better question is: what does the local market evidence say about this particular proposed rent?

How UpRently helps

UpRently helps you answer that question before you decide what to do next.

The free Rent Rise Checker compares a proposed rent with similar homes advertised nearby where suitable data is available. It gives a result and an evidence-strength rating so you can see whether the comparison is based on enough close properties to be useful.

The Evidence Pack brings those comparables and the method into one dated document. It can help you review the evidence, discuss the increase or prepare for the current official process.

It is not a prediction of a tribunal decision. It does not use a tribunal win rate, and it does not turn asking rents into achieved rents. It is a structured local market comparison that you can assess alongside other evidence about the home.