What You Have to Give a New Tenant Before They Move In

Most of the things that go wrong at the start of a tenancy are not arguments. They are dates.

A deposit protected on day 31 rather than day 30. A gas record handed over the week after somebody moved in rather than the week before. A document that was definitely sent, probably, in an email nobody can now find.

None of those feel like much on the day. All of them show up later, because several of them decide whether you can get your property back if you ever need to. Since May 2026 the list itself has changed too, so even landlords who had this off by heart are working from a slightly out of date memory.

The written statement of terms

This is the new one and it is the one most likely to be missed because it replaced something familiar.

From 1 May 2026 a landlord has to give the tenant a written statement of the key terms of the tenancy. For a new tenancy it has to be given before the tenancy is entered into. Not on the day, not with the keys.

It has to set out, at minimum:

• The rent and when it is due
• That rent periods cannot be longer than a month
• That any rent increase has to be proposed by serving a notice under section 13 of the Housing Act 1988
• The amount of any deposit

Most standard tenancy agreements from a reputable source now build this in, so in practice the statement is usually part of the agreement rather than a separate sheet. That is fine. What is not fine is assuming your 2023 template covers it, because it will not mention section 13 notices and it will very probably still talk about a fixed term.

There was also a one-off duty for tenancies that already existed on 1 May 2026: those with a written record of terms had to be given an information sheet by 31 May. If that passed you by, it is worth putting right rather than leaving.

The three documents

Alongside the statement, three things have to reach the tenant.

The gas safety record. A new tenant gets a copy before they occupy the property. Not within 28 days, which is the rule for an existing tenant after an annual check. Before they move in.

The Energy Performance Certificate. This one goes further back than the tenancy: it has to be available to prospective tenants, free of charge, while they are deciding. In practice it should be on the listing and in the hands of anybody who views.

The prescribed information about the deposit. This is not the same thing as protecting the deposit. Protecting it puts the money somewhere safe. The prescribed information tells the tenant which scheme holds it, how to get it back, how disputes work and who the landlord is. Both have to happen and the second one is the one people forget because the money is already dealt with.

If you have a fire alarm system, an electrical report or an inventory, those are all worth handing over too, but the three above are the ones with law attached.

The money you can ask for up front

Three separate limits. They get muddled together more often than any other part of this.

Rent in advance is capped at one month. This came in with the Renters' Rights Act and it changed a common practice: asking a tenant with a thin credit file for six months up front is no longer available as a way of derisking a let. A guarantor is.

The deposit is capped at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000 and six weeks where it is £50,000 or more. That cap came from the Tenant Fees Act 2019 and has not changed.

A holding deposit is capped at one week's rent and has rules of its own about when it must be repaid.

Note that the rent cap and the deposit cap are different payments with different rules. A holding deposit is a third thing again. Adding them together and calling the total "the move-in money" is how landlords accidentally breach one of the three.

The check that comes before all of it

In England you have to carry out a Right to Rent check on every adult who will live in the property as their only or main home, before the tenancy starts. Every adult, not just the person whose name is on the agreement and not just people who look or sound like they might need checking. Checking selectively is itself unlawful.

Most people now have a digital immigration status and provide a share code, which you verify on the Home Office service. Some documents are still checked manually, in the person's presence or over a live video call with the original in their hand. British and Irish citizens can be checked through a certified identity service provider.

Keep a copy of what you saw, dated, for the length of the tenancy plus a year. The check is what gives you a statutory excuse if it later turns out somebody did not have the right to rent. An undated photocopy is not a check.

Keep proof that you handed it over

Every duty on this page is a duty to give somebody something, which means the question is never really "did I do it" but "can I show I did it".

That sounds pedantic until you are standing in front of a tribunal with a tenancy that started three years ago and an agent who has since gone out of business.

Three habits cover it. Send the documents as attachments in one email rather than in five, so there is a single dated record. Get the tenant to sign or acknowledge receipt where you reasonably can. And keep the sent items, not just the files.

There is a further reason to get tidy about this now. The Renters' Rights Act creates a Private Rented Sector Database, with registration expected to begin rolling out from late 2026 and a mandatory landlord ombudsman alongside it. Both are built on the idea that a landlord can evidence compliance rather than assert it. The paperwork you keep this year is the paperwork you will be asked for next year.

If you are also working through the certificates behind these documents, the renewal cycles are in landlord safety certificates and when they expire.