Student Tenancy Agreement: Post-RRA 2025 with Ground 4A

A tenancy agreement for student lets, built around the academic-year cycle. Since the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (RRA 2025) abolished fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) from 1 May 2026, every new residential tenancy - student lets included - starts life as an assured periodic tenancy (APT) with no contractual end date. Student landlords instead rely on Ground 4A, a defined possession route tied to the academic year, to recover the property between cohorts. This document is drafted around that framework, with joint and several liability, parental guarantor provisions, and the Ground 4A pre-tenancy statement built in.

What this document is

A student tenancy is structurally the same as any other residential tenancy created after 1 May 2026: an assured periodic tenancy under the Housing Act 1988, as amended by the RRA 2025. There is no fixed term - the old "12-month AST running July to July" model no longer exists as a matter of contract law, whatever a template or a landlord's habit might say.

What makes student lets different is not the tenancy type, but two things layered on top of it:

1. Ground 4A - a mandatory possession ground, available only for qualifying student HMOs, that lets a landlord recover the property for the next academic year's intake without waiting for the tenant to leave voluntarily. This is the closest the post-RRA system gets to the old "fixed-term feel" of a student AST, but it is a possession right exercised through the court, not a contractual expiry date.
2. Payment and occupation terms tuned to student patterns - rent structured around the academic year, joint and several liability across a group of sharers, and (commonly) a parental guarantor for each tenant.

The Net Lawman template handles both layers: it is drafted as a correctly-worded assured periodic tenancy (not an AST), and it includes the written pre-tenancy statement that Ground 4A requires, ready for a single bedroom in halls-style accommodation up to a five- or six-bedroom house let to a friendship group.

Joint and several liability

The most common student let is a group of three to six students renting a whole house together. The agreement is typically signed by all tenants on a "joint and several" basis - meaning each tenant is liable for the whole rent, not just their own share. If one tenant leaves, drops out, or stops paying, the remaining tenants remain responsible for the full amount between them.

This protects the landlord's rent but can be a shock to students who assume they are only liable for "their room." The Net Lawman template states the joint and several basis clearly in the agreement itself, so there is no ambiguity when a dispute arises partway through the year.

Parental guarantors

Many student lets require a parental (or other third-party) guarantor for each tenant. A guarantor is typically liable only for that tenant's own obligations, but landlords sometimes want the guarantors themselves to be jointly and severally liable for the whole tenancy. The Net Lawman template supports both structures.

If you intend to use a standalone guarantor document rather than a clause built into the tenancy itself, see our guarantor agreement page.

Ground 4A: the student possession ground

Ground 4A was inserted into Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 by Schedule 1 to the RRA 2025, and came into force on 1 May 2026. It is a mandatory ground - if a landlord proves all of its conditions, the court must grant possession. Verify every figure below against the current version of the Act before relying on it; this is a fast-changing area and secondary legislation can adjust detail.

To rely on Ground 4A, all of the following conditions must be met at the relevant time:

• The property is (or is within) an HMO. Broadly, a House in Multiple Occupation - a property occupied by three or more people from at least two households sharing amenities such as a kitchen or bathroom. A flat let to a single student, or to a couple counted as one household, will not qualify.
• The tenant meets the "student test" when the tenancy is entered into. Either the tenant is already a full-time student on a recognised course at that point, or the landlord reasonably believes the tenant will become one during the tenancy. Where there are joint tenants, every one of them must meet the test - one non-student sharer can take the whole tenancy out of Ground 4A.
• A written pre-tenancy statement. Before the tenancy is entered into, the landlord (or at least one joint landlord) must give the tenant a written statement of the landlord's wish to be able to use Ground 4A - covering both that the tenant meets the student test and that the landlord intends to re-let to another student tenant afterwards. Skipping this step is the single most common way landlords lose the ground; in the ordinary case it cannot be added retrospectively once the tenancy has started.
• The tenancy was granted no more than six months before move-in. The gap between signing the agreement and the tenant's entitlement to possession must be six months or less.
• Possession must fall between 1 June and 30 September. The date specified in the Section 8 notice (and, ultimately, sought from the court) has to land inside this academic-year window - it cannot be used to recover a property mid-term.
• The landlord intends to re-let to another qualifying student tenant. Ground 4A exists to keep student HMOs cycling between cohorts, not to convert a property to another use.

Notice period

A landlord relying on Ground 4A must serve a Section 8 notice giving, in most cases, at least four months' notice, with the possession date it specifies falling inside the 1 June-30 September window described above. A shortened two-month transitional notice period was available only where the tenancy was signed before 1 May 2026 and the notice itself was served between 1 May and 31 July 2026, to help landlords through the first changeover under the new law; that window has now closed, so the standard four-month notice period applies to any notice served from this point on. Always check the current prescribed notice period and form on GOV.UK before serving notice, since these details can be adjusted by further regulations.

What Ground 4A does not cover

Two categories of student accommodation fall outside Ground 4A entirely:

• Smaller lets that are not HMOs - most commonly a self-contained studio or one-bedroom flat let to a single student, or a two-person let that does not meet the HMO threshold. These properties are ordinary assured periodic tenancies with no academic-year possession route; a landlord who needs the property back must rely on another applicable ground, or negotiate directly with the tenant.
• Purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) operated under a recognised code of practice (broadly, larger developments with 15 or more student residents signed up to an approved scheme). Genuine PBSA of this kind generally falls outside the assured tenancy regime altogether and is not affected by Ground 4A - it follows separate rules, which this page does not cover.

If your letting doesn't fit the HMO/Ground 4A pattern, or you are unsure which possession route applies, see our Section 8 notice page for the other grounds available, or read our guide to the Renters' Rights Act 2025 for the wider changes affecting every tenancy, not just student HMOs.

Deposits and deposit replacement schemes

Many student lets now use a deposit replacement (no-deposit) scheme instead of a traditional cash deposit, particularly where a parental guarantor is already in place. Where a cash deposit is taken, it must still be protected in a government-approved scheme within the usual statutory timescale, and the prescribed information given to the tenant, regardless of the tenancy type.

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This is general legal information, not legal advice. It explains the law of England & Wales in general terms as at the date shown above and does not take account of your specific circumstances. Tenancy law - and Ground 4A in particular - has changed significantly and further adjustments are possible; always check the current position on GOV.UK or legislation.gov.uk before relying on any notice period or precondition described here. For advice on your specific situation, consult a practising solicitor.