Urgent Advisory for All Tenants in England

A new law by the UK government requires landlords and managing letting agents to serve an official “Information Sheet” to their tenants on or before May 31st. This document is mandatory because it officially confers your new legal rights as a tenant.

However, many landlords are serving this document the wrong way without realizing it, thereby unintentionally jeopardising the rights of their tenants.

You may want to ask: 

“Can’t I just visit the government’s website to read the document if my landlord has not served it correctly?”

The answer is an absolute “no”. And here is why.

Think of it this way: In order to ease the struggles and tackle challenges faced by tenants in England, the government has come up with a strict list of rights that they want tenants to have over the private properties they rent. However, the government does not own these private properties. It is the owners (landlords) and managers (agents) that must legally grant these rights to you.

Having the owner or manager serve you the actual Information Sheet themselves, in the correct manner, means they are expressly granting you ALL the rights stated in the document. It then forms part of your tenancy agreement and protects you legally.

So, even though the government understands that tenants can simply visit the official website to download and read the document, that would mean the government is serving you the document directly to confer rights over a property the state does not own—which is a major legal blunder.

In fact, the government expressly prohibits landlords and letting agents from simply sending you a web link to the document for you to read yourself.

So, if all you received from your landlord or agent was a web link to the Information Sheet, that is a massive red flag 🚩 and you should take the recommended action right away, before closing this session.