Two things are worth knowing before you next open Rightmove. First, since 1 May 2026 a letting agent who offers you viewing slots they know you cannot make, because you mentioned a child, has committed an offence. Not a breach of etiquette. An offence, with a fine attached. Second, the fine is real money: GOV.UK's guidance for landlords states a penalty of up to £7,000 for each offence, and Cornerstone Barristers, reading the government's November 2025 civil penalties guidance, notes the suggested starting point for a first discrimination breach is £6,000. The council keeps the money and can spend it on more enforcement.
Most family renters still assume "no children" is a landlord's prerogative. It is now sections 33 and 34 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and the exemptions are narrower than any agent will tell you.
What actually changed on 1 May 2026
The Act's main provisions commenced on 1 May 2026. Assured shorthold tenancies were abolished and every existing tenancy converted to an assured periodic tenancy, rolling monthly with no end date. Section 21 no-fault eviction is gone. A landlord now needs a stated ground under Section 8, with evidence.
Alongside that came the rental discrimination rules. GOV.UK's guidance is blunt: a landlord in England must not do anything that makes a tenant less likely to rent a property, or prevents them from renting it, because they have children or get benefits. The duty extends to anyone acting on the landlord's behalf, including letting agents, referencing companies and, in the guidance's own words, friends or family members. Any part of a tenancy agreement, mortgage or superior lease that could be used to discriminate is void and unenforceable.
That last point matters more than it sounds. The old excuse ("my mortgage won't allow it") is dead. GOV.UK gives exactly that scenario as a worked example of discrimination, and confirms that a mortgage clause banning lets to benefit claimants simply does not count.
There is one asymmetry to understand. For children, a landlord can in principle defend a restriction as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, the retirement development being the standard example. For benefit claimants, GOV.UK states there is no such defence available at all.
What an agent can and cannot ask
Referencing did not disappear. The government's own landlord material confirms that affordability checks, referencing and guarantor requests are all still permitted.
| Still allowed | Now unlawful |
|---|---|
| Asking for proof of income and running an affordability check | Ignoring or discounting benefit income in that check |
| Setting an income multiple, provided it is the same for everyone | Raising the income bar because you mentioned children or Universal Credit |
| Asking for a guarantor | Demanding a guarantor only from applicants on benefits or with kids |
| Refusing an applicant who genuinely cannot afford the rent | Refusing an applicant who meets your own stated income test |
| Advertising a genuine retirement scheme with no resident children | "No DSS", "no children", "professionals only" on a general let |
| Taking one month's rent in advance after the agreement is signed | Asking for rent before the tenancy agreement is signed at all |
The government's rental discrimination guidance is specific about referencing: where an applicant complains that an income test was discriminatory, the council should ask whether the landlord accounted for all forms of income, including state benefits and pension, and treated them as of equal value. It also says that where several applicants clear the income bar, the landlord must not then use children or benefits to choose between them. Withholding information about a property, including whether it is still available, counts as discrimination too.
On rent in advance, the Act is stricter than most agents have caught up with. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner's reading of the commenced provisions is that there is an absolute prohibition on inviting or accepting rent before the agreement is signed, that only one month can be required afterwards, and that any term demanding more than a month in advance during the tenancy is void. Six months up front, long the workaround for families with irregular income, is no longer available to be asked for. The deposit cap under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 is unchanged at five weeks' rent, six where the annual rent is £50,000 or more, with holding deposits capped at one week.
Bidding is also out. Reed Smith's summary of the Act notes landlords must publish an asking rent and are prohibited from asking for, encouraging or accepting bids above it. If an agent tells you the family with the higher offer got it, that offer should not have been entertained.
The exemptions, and how narrow they are
GOV.UK lists the circumstances where a property may be exempt from the children rules: a shared property such as student housing with unrelated adults, a property so small that occupation would cause statutory overcrowding, certain licensing conditions, and safeguarding concerns that cannot reasonably be addressed. The burden sits with the landlord to show the exemption applies each time.
Insurance is the loophole to watch, and it is closing. A landlord can rely on an insurance term excluding children only if the policy genuinely says so, and GOV.UK confirms a tenant can ask to see the contract. Cornerstone Barristers notes that section 38 of the Act renders discriminatory insurance terms of no effect where the policy is agreed or renewed on or after 1 May 2026. So ask when the policy renews. Most annual policies will have rolled over by next spring.
Documenting a refusal, this week
Councils act on evidence, not indignation. The government guidance tells local authorities to compile the evidence provided by the alleged victim, take a witness statement, then put the case to the landlord or agent for a response. Your job is to make that easy.
- Move every conversation to email or WhatsApp. After any phone call, send a short message: "Thanks for the call. Just to confirm what you said: the landlord won't consider applicants with children." Agents rarely correct it in writing, and silence is useful.
- Screenshot the advert before it changes. Include the URL, the asking rent and the date. Adverts get quietly edited within hours of a complaint.
- Ask one direct question in writing. "Can you confirm the landlord's income requirement, and confirm that my Universal Credit housing element will be counted towards it?" A refusal to answer, or an answer that excludes benefit income, is the offence in a single line.
- Keep proof you met the bar. Payslips, benefit award letters, bank statements, an open banking affordability report if your agent uses one. The council's first question will be whether you could have met the stated requirement.
- Note the viewing times you were offered. Unreasonable viewing slots are given in GOV.UK's guidance as a worked example of discrimination, in a case where the landlord was fined.
Reporting it to the borough
You report to the local authority for the area the property is in, not the borough you currently live in. GOV.UK is explicit on that point for applicants moving from elsewhere. In practice that means the private sector housing or housing enforcement team at, say, Lewisham or Waltham Forest, usually reachable through a "report a private landlord" form.
Councils can issue a penalty of up to £7,000 per offence and, per the November 2025 guidance, may issue a further penalty for a repeat breach of the same provision within five years. Where a landlord and agent are both responsible for the same conduct, they can be fined jointly and are jointly and severally liable. The landlord or agent can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.
Enforcement is not your only route. The government guidance points out that tenants can also go to a letting agent redress scheme or bring civil proceedings, and that redress schemes and the courts can order the landlord to put things right, including an apology or financial compensation. The Private Rented Sector Ombudsman is the other door. Reporting to the council costs nothing and does not stop you doing any of this.
The twelve-month protected period and the school year
This is the part that changes how a family should think about timing a move.
Ground 1 (the landlord or a close family member moving in) and Ground 1A (the landlord selling) both require four months' notice, and neither can bring a tenancy to an end during its first twelve months. The NRLA notes that government guidance permits the notice to be served inside that period as long as it does not expire before the twelve months are up. Goodlord's legal briefing puts the practical effect plainly: the earliest a Ground 1A notice can be served is month eight, expiring no sooner than the end of month twelve.
| Tenancy starts | Earliest notice can be served | Earliest possession date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 September 2026 | 1 May 2027 | 1 September 2027 |
| 1 October 2026 | 1 June 2027 | 1 October 2027 |
| 1 January 2027 | 1 September 2027 | 1 January 2028 |
Sign a family let this month and neither the sale ground nor the moving-in ground can put you out before September 2027, after the school year ends. Court time on top of that, if you do not leave voluntarily, pushes it later still.
One important caveat: the NRLA points out that 1 May 2026 did not reset the start date of existing tenancies. If you have been in the flat since 2023, your protected period is long gone and only the four months' notice applies, which on an October notice means a January possession date, squarely mid-year. That asymmetry is a genuine argument for signing a fresh tenancy rather than letting an old one roll, if your landlord is at all likely to sell.
Two other grounds are worth knowing. Under Ground 8, the arrears threshold rose to three months' unpaid rent for a monthly tenancy, and arrears caused solely by a delayed Universal Credit housing payment are excluded from the calculation. And rent can now be reviewed only once a year to a market rate, with contractual rent review clauses no longer permitted and a tribunal route to challenge an increase.
Where three-bedroom family lets are worth looking
The ONS Price Index of Private Rents is the number to trust here, because it covers new and existing tenancies rather than asking prices. Its August 2026 release puts the average monthly private rent in England at £1,451 in July, up 3.8% on the year, with the UK average at £1,393.
Family-sized stock carries a clear premium. The ONS figures for June 2026 show the UK average was £2,061 for properties with four or more bedrooms against £1,127 for one bedroom, and £1,355 for flats and maisonettes against £1,577 for detached homes. Space, not postcode, is what a family is paying for.
London's spread within itself is wider than the gap between London and anywhere else. In June 2026 the ONS recorded Kensington and Chelsea as the most expensive local area in the country at £3,596 a month, while the priciest area outside London, Oxford, sat at £1,961. Outer boroughs sit far below the Kensington figure, and the ONS publishes rent by local authority and by number of bedrooms, so before you commit to a shortlist, check your three or four target boroughs in that dataset rather than trusting an agent's sense of the going rate.
Sources disagree on direction. The HomeLet Rental Index had London rents 6.0% up year on year in July 2026, while the ONS recorded London as having the lowest annual rent inflation in England, 2.0%, in the twelve months to April 2026. HomeLet measures new tenancies passing through one referencing pipeline; the ONS measures the whole stock. I would use the ONS and treat HomeLet as a signal about what new lets are being advertised at.
Practically, the three-bedroom houses with gardens are east and south east along the Elizabeth line (Abbey Wood, Woolwich, Romford, Chadwell Heath), south along Thameslink and the Southeastern lines into Catford, Hither Green and Bexley, and north along the Overground into Enfield and Chingford. Terraces in these areas are often older and colder than the flats you are leaving, so the minimum energy efficiency rules are worth checking against the EPC before you commit, because a family bill in a leaky three-bed will eat the rent saving.
When you find one, get the tenancy start date in writing and count twelve months forward. That date, not the advert, is what protects your child's school year.