The Renters’ Rights Act Has Arrived. Here’s the Calm Route Through It

What Changed on 1 May

If you own rental property in England, your business changed this spring, whether you noticed on the day or not.

Since 1 May 2026, under the Renters’ Rights Act: Section 21 is gone — there is no longer a no-fault route to possession. Fixed-term tenancies are gone too; every assured tenancy now runs open-ended and periodic. Rent can rise once a year, with two months’ notice, and your tenant can challenge the increase at tribunal. A database registration and a mandatory ombudsman are on their way behind it.

None of this makes you a bad investment overnight. But it does change what kind of business you’re in.

The Honest Arithmetic

I’ve sat across the table from a lot of landlords this past year, and the same calculation keeps surfacing.

The AST model now carries more process, more uncertainty about possession, and a rent-review cycle that can end up in front of a tribunal. For one flat, that’s admin. For a portfolio — ten flats, a block, a converted house — it’s a structural question: do you want to run a compliance operation, or own an asset that pays you?

Most of the landlords I speak to didn’t get into property because they love process. They got in for the income and the long-term value. The Act hasn’t touched either of those things — it has only made the traditional route to them more demanding.

Why a Company Lease Reads Differently

Here is the structural point, and it’s worth understanding precisely.

When you lease your property to The INVITED as a company, on a fixed term of three to fifteen years, that arrangement sits outside the assured tenancy framework the Act reshapes — a company cannot hold an assured tenancy. Your counterparty isn’t a consumer tenant; it’s a business with a lease, obligations, and a reputation to protect.

What that means in practice: a fixed term that actually stays fixed. Rent that arrives every month whether the apartments are full or empty. No possession process, because there’s no tenant to possess against — at the end of the lease, the property comes back to you, professionally maintained and, frankly, better dressed than it left.

We’re operators, not your solicitors — take structural advice for your own situation. But the direction of travel is not subtle.

Two Ways to Partner: Certainty or Upside

Landlords come in two temperaments, so we offer two models.

Guaranteed rent. A fixed monthly figure for the full lease term, three to fifteen years. Occupancy is our risk, not yours. This is the model for owners who want property income to behave like a bond — predictable, boring, bankable.

Revenue share. We manage and operate your property as design-led serviced accommodation, and you take a share of what it actually earns. Short-stay operation, done well, typically out-earns a standard tenancy — and under this model that upside is yours, not just ours. Income moves with the seasons, but the ceiling is higher, and you keep more flexibility over the asset.

Some partners split the difference — a base rent plus a share above it. The structure follows your appetite; the operation underneath is identical either way: our design, our guests, our management, your asset improving.

What We Do With the Property

This is the part I care about most, because it’s what makes the model durable rather than opportunistic.

We transform each property to The INVITED standard — warm minimalism, natural materials, interiors designed by our own team — and operate it as serviced accommodation for professionals: relocations, project teams, academics, longer corporate stays in Oxford and London. Design-led properties attract careful guests, and careful guests are what keep a building beautiful for a decade.

Cleaning, compliance, safety checks, guest vetting, maintenance — handled. Your involvement after signing is choosing what to do with the income.

The Quiet Question

The Act was written to professionalise the rental sector. In a sense, we agree with its authors: the era of casual landlording is closing.

The question is only who does the professionalising — you, at your own expense and evenings, or a partner whose entire business is exactly that.

If you own apartments, a block, or an underused building in Oxford, London, or beyond, the conversation costs nothing.

Partner with The INVITED — guaranteed rent or revenue share, full management, design uplift. Get in touch.