84% of Landlords Are Not Ready for the Renters' Rights Act — Here's What the Data Shows

New compliance scorecard data from nearly 400 UK landlords reveals significant readiness gaps with less than two weeks to go

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Key findings: 84% of landlords who took the Togal Compliance Scorecard scored "At Risk" or "High Risk." 58% fell into the highest risk tier. The average compliance score was just 38 out of 100. Only 16% scored "Mostly Compliant."

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The Renters' Rights Act comes into force on 1 May 2026. It is the most significant change to England's private rental sector since the Housing Act 1988.

We launched the Togal Compliance Scorecard to help landlords check their readiness across five key areas of the new legislation. In its first 10 days, nearly 400 landlords completed the full assessment.

The results are concerning.

The Numbers

84 percent of landlords scored either "At Risk" or "High Risk."

To put that in context: the landlords who took this scorecard are, by definition, the engaged ones — people who actively sought out a compliance check. They are more informed than the average landlord. If 84 percent of this group has gaps, the general landlord population is likely in a worse position.

What the Scorecard Measures

The assessment covers five categories of obligation under the Renters' Rights Act and existing landlord law:

1. Communication Records

How are you documenting conversations with your tenants? WhatsApp messages can be deleted by either side. Email threads are scattered across inboxes. Phone calls leave no record at all.

Under the new Act, the burden of proof shifts. If a tenant claims you never informed them of something — a repair, a safety check, a notice — you need timestamped records to demonstrate otherwise.

2. Safety Compliance

Gas safety certificates, EICRs, and EPCs are not new requirements. But under the Renters' Rights Act, non-compliance with safety obligations exposes landlords to Rent Repayment Orders of up to 24 months' rent.

The scorecard checks whether these certificates are current, whether they were provided to tenants, and whether there is a documented trail proving when they were issued.

3. Tenancy Documentation

Deposit protection, prescribed information, and the new mandatory Information Sheet under Section 12 of the Act. The Information Sheet must be provided to all new tenants from 1 May 2026 and to all existing tenants by 31 May 2026.

Many landlords who scored poorly on the scorecard had valid deposits and certificates — but no structured record of when documents were provided to tenants.

4. Repair and Maintenance Processes

How are tenants reporting issues? How are you tracking response times? Under Awaab's Law (extended to the private sector by the Act), landlords must respond to hazards within specific timeframes — 24 hours for emergencies, 14 days for non-emergencies.

If a tenant reports damp by text message and you reply by phone, there is no verifiable record of your response time. The scorecard assesses whether your repair reporting process creates the kind of documentation that would withstand scrutiny.

5. Dispute Preparedness

If a dispute reaches the First-tier Tribunal, what evidence can you produce? The scorecard evaluates whether your current systems would generate a coherent, timestamped record of communications, repairs, and compliance — or whether you would be relying on screenshots and memory.

Why the Scores Are So Low

The data suggests most landlords are doing the right things but not documenting them properly.

A landlord who responds to every repair request within 24 hours but does so by phone call has no evidence of that response time. A landlord who provides a gas safety certificate to every tenant but hands it over in person has no proof of when it was received. A landlord who communicates clearly and fairly with tenants via WhatsApp has a record that either party can delete at any time.

This is the gap the scorecard reveals. The problem is not negligence — it is the difference between being compliant and being able to prove compliance.

That distinction matters significantly under the Renters' Rights Act. Rent Repayment Orders, which allow tenants to claim up to 24 months' rent, require the landlord to demonstrate compliance — not just claim it.

"Most landlords are doing many things right," said James Ashford, spokesperson for Togal. "But the Renters' Rights Act changes the burden of proof. It is no longer enough to say you sent a document or fixed a repair. You need to be able to demonstrate it with a clear, timestamped trail."

What This Means for the Sector

There are approximately 2.3 million landlords in England's private rented sector, managing homes for over 11 million tenants. If the pattern from our scorecard data holds across the wider population, the majority of landlords are entering the new regulatory regime with significant documentation gaps.

This creates risk on both sides:

• For landlords: Exposure to Rent Repayment Orders, difficulty defending possession claims under Section 8, and inability to demonstrate compliance with safety and documentation obligations.
• For tenants: A landlord who cannot prove compliance may also be one who cannot produce evidence of communications, repair timelines, or notice periods — leaving both parties without a reliable record if a dispute arises.

Three Things to Do Before 1 May

If you have not yet assessed your compliance readiness, here is where to start:

1. Take the Compliance Scorecard

The Togal Compliance Scorecard is free, takes four minutes, and gives you an instant breakdown of where your gaps are across all five categories. Even if you do not use Togal, the assessment will tell you what to focus on.

2. Centralise Your Communication Records

Move tenant conversations out of WhatsApp, email, and phone calls into a single system that creates timestamped, tamper-evident records. This does not need to be Togal — but it does need to be something that neither party can edit or delete after the fact.

3. Prepare the Mandatory Information Sheet

This is a new legal requirement under Section 12 of the Act. Every new tenant from 1 May must receive it. Every existing tenant must receive it by 31 May. The government has published the required content — make sure you have a process for distributing it and documenting that it was provided.

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Methodology

The data in this article comes from the Togal Compliance Scorecard, a free online self-assessment tool. Nearly 400 landlords completed the full 15-question assessment between 9 April and 19 April 2026.

The scorecard is a self-selecting sample: respondents actively chose to assess their compliance, which likely means they are more engaged with regulatory changes than the average landlord. The results should be interpreted as indicative of readiness among informed landlords, not as a representative sample of all 2.3 million landlords in England.

Risk tiers are calculated from a weighted score across five compliance categories. "High Risk" indicates a score of 0-40%, "At Risk" indicates 41-65%, and "Mostly Compliant" indicates 66-100%.

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James Ashford is the spokesperson for Togal, the communication and compliance platform for UK landlords and tenants. Togal is an NRLA member.