Your First Summer Turnaround Under the Renters’ Rights Act

By James, HOMEi Team. Published June 2026.

Every summer when I’ve managed student houses, the turnaround period has followed the same pattern. Tenants leave at the end of June. You inspect, repair, clean, restock. New tenants arrive in September. Repeat.

This new student year is different. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026, and it has changed how the summer changeover works in ways that will catch some landlords off guard. Fixed-term tenancies no longer exist. Your old ASTs have converted to periodic tenancies. Some of your tenants may not have served notice to leave. And if you haven’t served the right paperwork, you may not be able to recover possession before the next student year.

This post covers the practical side of a 2026 summer turnaround: what’s new this year, what’s stayed the same, and the checklist I’d work through if I were turning around a student HMO this July to September.

If you haven’t read our guide to the Renters’ Rights Act, start there. This post assumes you’ve already served the Information Sheet and dealt with the 31 May deadline.

What’s different about this summer

Three things have changed that directly affect how you run a student turnaround in 2026.

Your tenants’ fixed terms ended on 1 May, not 30 June

Every assured shorthold tenancy (AST) in England converted to an assured periodic tenancy (APT) on 1 May 2026. That means the “end date” on your old tenancy agreement is no longer legally binding. If your tenants haven’t given two months’ notice to leave, or if you haven’t served valid notice to recover possession, they have the right to stay. Don’t assume they’ll just move out because the contract said 30 June. Some will. Some won’t.

Ground 4A is how you recover possession now (if you’re an HMO)

If your property is a licensed or licensable HMO let to full-time students, Ground 4A is the possession ground designed for the academic cycle. You need to have served the Ground 4A notice before the tenancy began to use it. For existing tenancies signed before 1 May 2026, there is a transitional arrangement: you can serve two months’ notice until 31 July 2026 (source: NRLA guidance). After that, the standard four-month notice period applies. If you haven’t served this yet, do it this week.

New tenants need a Written Statement of Terms, not just an AST

If you’re letting to new students for September 2026, you can no longer use a fixed-term AST. The tenancy will be a periodic assured tenancy from day one. Before the tenant signs, you must give them a Written Statement of Terms setting out the key terms of the tenancy (GOV.UK guidance, March 2026); these terms can be set out within the tenancy agreement. Failure to provide this can lead to a fine of up to £7,000.

If any of this is unclear for your specific tenancies, talk to a solicitor or contact the NRLA, who have detailed guidance for student landlords.

Start with the check-out

Before you touch a paintbrush, get your check-out evidence in order. This is the single step that saves you the most money across the rest of the turnaround.

A proper check-out inspection gives you a dated, room-by-room record of the property’s condition at the point your tenants leave. Without it, deposit disputes become guesswork. You won’t be able to prove if damage was there before, the deposit protection scheme will side with the tenant on anything undocumented, and you’ll end up paying for repairs the outgoing tenants should have covered.

The old approach was to drive over, walk through the house with a clipboard, and take photos on your phone. That works, but it doesn’t scale if you have more than a few properties, and it creates records that are hard to organise and harder to find six months later.

A fully digital check-out inspection, where you or your agent photograph each room against a guided checklist on your phone, gives you timestamped, structured records ready to support you in any disputes. The photos are tied to the property, stored in one place, and easy to pull up if a dispute arises. This is one of the core features we built into HOMEi PM, because we found ourselves drowning in disorganised phone photos and clipboard notes across multiple houses. If you didn’t do this for this year’s check-out, make it a non-negotiable for next year’s.

Room-by-room inspection checklist

Walk through the house with a checklist and a camera. Note everything as you go. Don’t trust your memory.

Bedrooms

Check mattresses for stains and sagging. Test plug sockets and any USB charging points. Check curtain rails and blinds. Look behind furniture for damp patches, especially on external walls. Check window locks and seals: drafty windows in November generate complaints and cost you money in heating disputes.

Kitchen

Deep clean the oven, extractor hood, and behind the fridge. Test every appliance and replace anything showing signs of failure. Check taps for limescale damage. Re-seal around the sink if the silicone is mouldy. Restock basics: bin, recycling caddy, cleaning supplies. This sets the tone for how the next group will treat the house.

Bathrooms

Re-grout and re-seal anywhere water sits. This is the single biggest source of mid-tenancy maintenance calls in my experience. Descale showerheads. Check extractor fans: most are clogged with dust after a year and pull no air, which leads directly to mould. Replace shower curtains; these build up mould after a year.

Communal areas

Repaint scuffed walls. Steam clean sofas and chairs. Test every smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector. Replace batteries even if they seem fine. Make sure every light fitting has a working bulb.

Outside

Clear gutters before autumn. Blocked gutters cause damp inside the house, which becomes a much more expensive problem under the new Awaab’s Law timescales. Trim overgrowth from windows and air bricks. Check front door locks and house numbers.

With HOMEi PM, you can run this checklist as a guided digital inspection directly from your phone. Each room has a structured set of prompts, you photograph as you go, and the platform compiles it into a dated, branded report you can refer back to months later or share with contractors. No more sifting through camera rolls trying to remember which photo belongs to which property.

Compliance certificates: what to check this summer

Some of these are time-sensitive. Getting them wrong can mean you can’t legally let the property. Under the Renters’ Rights Act, councils now have expanded enforcement powers, so the risk of being caught has gone up, not down.

Gas Safety Certificate (CP12)

Must be renewed every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Book it now. Engineers get fully booked in August and September. A typical CP12 costs £65 to £110 depending on the number of appliances (LWR Group, 2026). You must give a copy to your tenants before they move in.

Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR)

Required every five years. If yours is due this year, sort it now. Any C1 (immediate danger) or C2 (potentially dangerous) findings mean the report is unsatisfactory and remedial work must be completed within 28 days (Home Safety UK). Fines for non-compliance can reach £30,000.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)

Must be rated E or above. Valid for 10 years. Must be available before you advertise the property and provided to the tenant before they move in (SelfLandlord).

Smoke and CO alarms

Must be working on the day each new tenant moves in. Installation is your responsibility. Testing after move-in day is the tenant’s responsibility, but you should document that they were working at check-in.

HMO licence

If your property needs one (most shared student houses do), check it’s current and you’re meeting all conditions.

Legionella risk assessment

Landlords must carry out a Legionella risk assessment for all rental properties. Often forgotten, always required.

Keep records of every certificate, every test, every check. If a tenant complains to the council, or if a possession claim is challenged, your documentation is what protects you. HOMEi PM stores all compliance documents against the specific property, tracks expiry dates, and flags when certificates are coming due so nothing slips through the cracks.

Budget for what will go wrong in October

This is where most landlords lose money. They sort the visible problems in August and then get hit by emergency call-outs in October when the heating goes on for the first time.

An £80 boiler service in August prevents a £2,500 emergency replacement in November. A £40 gutter clear stops a £1,200 damp remediation job in January. The maths of preventative maintenance is clear.

Set aside a budget for:

• Boiler service before the heating season
• Plumbing checks on radiators and pressure valves
• A spare set of keys (you will need them)
• Replacement bulbs, batteries, and small consumables

Document everything

Every photo, every receipt, every certificate, every repair. Store it in one place, tied to the specific property.

If a tenant reports damp in February, you want to pull up dated photos showing the wall was dry in August. If a council inspector visits, you want every gas certificate from the last decade accessible in minutes. If you’re challenged on a deposit deduction, you want timestamped evidence, not a vague memory of what the kitchen looked like.

The landlords who run student HMOs profitably year after year tend to be the ones with the best records, not the most properties.

Getting set up for September

If you’re letting to new tenants this autumn, your onboarding checklist is longer than it was last year. Under the Renters’ Rights Act, you now need to:

1. Provide the Written Statement of Terms before the tenant signs.
2. Give them a copy of every current safety certificate (gas, EICR, EPC).
3. Ensure the tenancy is set up as a periodic assured tenancy (no fixed term).
4. Register the deposit within 30 days and provide the prescribed information.
5. Serve the Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet. For new tenancies created after 1 May 2026, check the latest GOV.UK guidance on what’s required.
6. If you plan to use Ground 4A to recover possession at the end of the next academic year, serve the appropriate notice before the tenancy begins.

Getting all of this right at the start of a tenancy is much easier than trying to fix it six months in.

See it in action: how HOMEi PM handles inspections

We built HOMEi PM because managing compliance, inspections, and documentation across multiple student properties is messy if done wrong, with some serious consequences. The platform keeps a single record per tenancy, logs every notice and certificate, and runs digital inspections through the same app your tenants already use for household tasks.

Here’s a quick look at how the guided inspection process works:

The demo shows an early version of the inspection flow. You select the property and room, follow the guided prompts, take photos at each stage, and the system compiles everything into a single timestamped report. It’s still in development and we’re adding features based on feedback from our pilot partners, but the core idea is simple: structured evidence collection that doesn’t depend on remembering to bring a clipboard.

Get involved

We’re co-designing HOMEi PM with letting agents and university housing providers in Sheffield right now. If you’re a landlord and you’d like to be part of the pilot, email us at support@homeistudent.com. We want to hear how you’re handling this summer’s turnaround and what you wish a tool would do for you.