Written Statement of Terms: What Every Landlord Must Give a Tenant Before the Tenancy Starts

A landlord letting a property in England on an assured tenancy now has to hand the tenant a written statement covering a fixed list of terms and information before that tenancy begins. The duty is new — it did not exist under the assured shorthold system — and it sits in section 16D of the Housing Act 1988, inserted by section 12 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025. It applies to assured tenancies in England from 1 May 2026.

Unlike most of the reform, this is not a duty anyone is likely to notice breaching in the moment. Nothing goes wrong at signing if the statement is missing. The gap only surfaces later — in a dispute, an inspection, or a tenant complaint — by which point it cannot be fixed retrospectively for that tenancy.

What the duty actually requires

Section 16D(2) of the Housing Act 1988 splits the statement into two parts: the terms of the tenancy that regulations specify, and any other prescribed information about the tenancy, the property, the tenant, the landlord, or either party's rights. The regulations doing the specifying are a separate statutory instrument — The Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Statement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/324) — and its Schedule sets out the list in full.

Reading that Schedule directly, the required content covers, in summary:

• The landlord's name (or names, for joint landlords) and the tenant's name (or names, for joint tenants).
• An address in England and Wales where the tenant can serve notices on the landlord, including notices in proceedings.
• The address of the property let, and the date the tenant first became entitled to possession.
• The rent and when it is due, plus — where the tenant pays council tax, a utility, a green deal charge, a TV licence, or a communication service as part of or alongside the rent — a statement of that and, where it's charged separately, how the amount and due date will be notified.
• A statement explaining that if the landlord wants to increase the rent, they must serve a notice under section 13 of the Housing Act 1988.
• Where a tenancy deposit is taken and the Housing Act 2004 deposit-protection requirements apply, the amount of that deposit.
• Where the notice-to-quit protection in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 applies, the minimum notice period the tenant must give.
• Where the tenancy has security of tenure under section 5 of the 1988 Act, an explanation that the landlord generally needs a court order to end it, that a notice of proceedings in the prescribed form is usually required first, and that the ground relied on sets the minimum notice period.
• Where they apply: a statement on fitness for human habitation (Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, s.9A), the landlord's repairing obligations (1985 Act, s.11), electrical safety duties (the 2020 Electrical Safety Standards Regulations), and gas safety duties (the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998).
• Information about the right to request disability-related improvements under section 190 of the Equality Act 2010, where the tenant is entitled to make them with consent.
• A statement about the tenant's right to ask to keep a pet under section 16A of the 1988 Act, and that consent must not be unreasonably refused.
• Whether the tenancy is of supported accommodation, and why, if that's the case.

One item is worth separating out because of what it enables rather than what it discloses. Section 16D(3) lets a landlord use the statement to record a wish to be able to recover possession later on specific grounds — Ground 1B, Grounds 2ZA to 2ZD, Ground 4, Grounds 5 to 5H, Ground 6A, or Ground 18 in Schedule 2 to the 1988 Act. The Act cross-refers this to sections 16E(1)(f) and 16I(1)(a): the consequence of a possession notice later citing one of those grounds without having flagged it here sits elsewhere in the Act, not in the content list itself. Practically, that makes the statement the place to note any grounds a landlord might realistically want in future — moving in, selling, letting to a student the next year — rather than something to complete narrowly for the tenancy as it stands on day one.

The itemised summary above follows the Schedule to SI 2026/324 as made. The made version on legislation.gov.uk, linked below, is the text that governs — check it directly for anything you are relying on, rather than any summary including this one.

When it has to be given

Section 16D(4) states the general rule plainly: the statement must be given before the tenancy is entered into. It is a pre-letting document, handed over alongside the deposit paperwork and the safety certificates, not something that follows the tenant in afterwards.

The main narrower situations get a 28-day deadline instead, running from a defined trigger rather than from the start of the tenancy (Housing Act 1988 s.16D(5)-(7)):

• Where the tenancy arises by succession, 28 days from the date the landlord acknowledges the tenant's right to it.
• Where the tenancy is an assured agricultural occupancy and the agricultural worker condition is fulfilled under paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the 1988 Act, the same 28 days from that acknowledgment date.
• Where a demoted tenancy changes landlord, 28 days from the date the new landlord takes over.
• In any other case where an existing tenancy becomes one section 16D applies to, 28 days from the date it becomes an assured tenancy.

For a tenancy that was wholly oral and already existed when the Act commenced, a separate transitional rule applies: the "before the tenancy is entered into" wording is read instead as before the end of one month beginning with the commencement date, so those tenancies are not exempt — they simply had a short window to be brought into compliance (Renters' Rights Act 2025, Schedule 6, paragraph 7(5)).

The penalty, stated carefully

There are two numbers, and they are not in conflict. Section 16I(6) of the Housing Act 1988 sets the ceiling: a financial penalty for contravening section 16D must not be more than £7,000. Government's civil penalties guidance then tells local housing authorities where to begin within that range — its table of starting points sets £4,000 for this specific breach. A first, uncontested failure is therefore likely to be assessed at around £4,000, but an authority can go up to £7,000 where the guidance's aggravating factors (culpability, track record, harm caused, deterrence) justify it. Separate breaches — at the same property or across different properties — each carry their own £7,000 cap; they are not pooled into one shared ceiling.

Beyond that figure, the conduct can escalate. Continuing a breach for more than 28 days after a penalty has been issued, or committing a further breach within 5 years of a previous one, moves it into offence territory, where the penalty rises to up to £40,000 as an alternative to prosecution. A local authority must give 28 days' notice before a final penalty notice, and there is a further 28-day window to appeal a final notice to the First-tier Tribunal.

How this differs from the Information Sheet and the How to Rent guide

Three separate pieces of paper arrived around the same date, and conflating them is the most common mistake here.

The Information Sheet is a government-published leaflet explaining what the Renters' Rights Act changed. It was aimed at tenants who already had a tenancy running when the reforms commenced — landlords had to give it to those existing tenants within one month of the commencement date (Renters' Rights Act 2025, Schedule 6, paragraph 7(2)). It explains the reform generally; it does not contain the tenant's own rent, deposit, or notice details.

The written statement of terms is specific to the individual tenancy — this page's subject. Schedule 6, paragraph 7(1)(a) confirms that section 16D does not apply where an existing tenancy is already wholly or partly in writing; the written statement duty is aimed at tenancies entered into on or after 1 May 2026, plus existing wholly oral tenancies under the transitional rule above. A landlord who served the Information Sheet on a long-standing tenant has not thereby produced a written statement for a new letting — they are separate obligations reaching different situations.

The How to Rent guide is not part of either duty. It was tied to assured shorthold tenancies, and since that category stopped being created from 1 May 2026, the guide has no continuing role in a new letting.

The practical route: one document, not three

Nothing in section 16D requires a standalone document called "written statement of terms." A tenancy agreement that has been drafted against the Schedule to SI 2026/324 and given before the tenancy is entered into satisfies the duty — the agreement and the statement can be the same paperwork.

What does not work is relying on an agreement drafted before these regulations existed. Pre-2026 agreements will not address the section 13 rent-increase procedure, the pet-request right, the security-of-tenure explanation now required, or a considered decision about which possession grounds to flag under section 16D(3) — because none of those provisions existed when they were written. For a room in a shared house let on individual tenancies, the same logic applies per room: each tenant's own agreement needs to carry their own statement. Where a rent increase is on the table later, the mechanism that applies is the one described in our guide to the statutory rent-increase procedure, not whatever an older agreement's review clause says.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the Information Sheet, served on an existing tenant, also covers a new letting — it does not.
• Handing the statement over after the tenant has moved in, rather than before the tenancy is entered into.
• Reusing an agreement drafted before 2026, which is silent on the items this Schedule now requires.
• Leaving out a possession ground a landlord might want later, when section 16D(3) is the moment to record it.
• Treating a single joint tenancy and several individual room tenancies as interchangeable — the statement duty follows the tenancy structure that actually exists.

Where to take advice instead

If a tenant, a local authority, or a court has already raised a missing written statement — in correspondence, in response to a section 8 notice, or in a rent repayment order application — the question has moved from what the document should have said to what the consequences are for a set of facts that has already happened. That turns on timing and evidence specific to what occurred, not on drafting, and is a matter for a practising solicitor rather than a template.

The same applies if a local authority has issued a notice of intent to fine: there is a 28-day window to make representations, and it is short.