What the rental bidding ban actually means for London landlords (Renters' Rights Act 2025, section 56)
Short answer: since 1 May 2026, section 56 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 has prohibited landlords and letting agents from soliciting, encouraging, or accepting rent above the advertised asking rent. Every property must be marketed at a single fixed figure, and that figure is the ceiling. "From £X" pricing is no longer lawful, and accepting a higher offer from a competing applicant is no longer lawful.
The point of this post is not the rule itself. The point is the operational consequence: under-pricing is now worse than over-pricing, and the speed of your application process matters more than the asking rent.
What section 56 actually says
The Act requires three things of any agent or landlord marketing a property in England.
The asking rent must be a single fixed figure. Listings that say "offers from £2,400" or "rent guide £2,400 to £2,650" are not compliant. Rightmove and Zoopla have removed range-pricing fields from their listing interfaces; an agent who still publishes a range is doing it manually and exposing the landlord to enforcement risk.
No payment can be solicited, encouraged, or accepted above the advertised figure. That covers the obvious case (a written offer at £2,650 against a £2,400 listing) and the less obvious cases — the applicant who volunteers "I'll add £50 to be sure of getting it", the agent who hints to two applicants that whoever offers most will win, the landlord who counters at a higher figure after referencing comes back clean. All three are now unlawful.
The rule applies from listing to tenancy execution. Once the property is marketed at £2,400, the rent on the agreement must be £2,400 or less — never more. If the landlord wants to increase the asking figure mid-marketing, the property has to be re-listed at the new rate, not negotiated above the old one.
Enforcement sits with local authority Trading Standards under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 framework as amended, with civil penalties of up to £5,000 for a first breach and up to £30,000 for a repeat breach within five years.
Why under-pricing is now worse than over-pricing
In the pre-RRA market, an under-priced listing was self-correcting. Ten applicants offered, the highest bid won, and the let crystallised at something close to the market rent. The mispricing cost the landlord some marketing time, but the eventual rent was right.
That correction mechanism is illegal now. If you list at £2,400 and the market would have borne £2,650, the £2,400 is the ceiling. The first qualifying applicant gets the property at £2,400, and once the tenancy commences, that £2,400 is locked in for at least twelve months under the Section 13 anniversary rule (the next post in this series covers that in detail).
The compound effect is severe. A property let £200 below market loses £2,400 over year one, another £2,400 over year two until the first Section 13 review, and even with a perfectly executed annual increase the deficit takes three years or more to clear. That is real money that cannot be recovered through any post-listing mechanism the Act left available.
Over-pricing, by contrast, produces void weeks. Void weeks are recoverable: relist at the right figure (subject to the relisting constraints — see the Four Week Rule post in this series), and the tenancy will let at market. Over-pricing is now a marketing error. Under-pricing is a structural one.
What this changes about how applications get allocated
The bidding ban makes the allocation question more important than the rent question. If the property is correctly priced and ten applicants apply on day one, you cannot pick the highest bidder. They all offered the same figure. So which one gets it?
The Act requires allocation on lawful, non-discriminatory grounds. In practice that means: the first applicant who meets the published criteria, passes referencing, and pays the holding deposit gets the property. Speed of process, not size of offer, is now the variable.
This is operationally significant. An agent who takes three days to acknowledge an enquiry, two days to send the referencing pack, and a week to chase the application has lost the applicant, and the applicant has gone to whichever competing property had a faster process.
At Harvey W James, we allocate strictly to the first applicant who (i) meets the published criteria as listed on the property page, (ii) passes Goodlord referencing including affordability at 30x monthly rent or via the Goodlord Guarantor route, and (iii) pays the one-week holding deposit. We publish referencing criteria with every listing. We respond to enquiries inside one working day. We aim to confirm a let within five working days of a complete application, and that aim is the operational answer to the bidding ban. The pricing decision is now permanent; the speed of the process is what closes the gap.
What landlords should do differently
Three operational changes.
First, set the asking rent at the open market figure, not above it and not below it. Above the market produces void weeks. Below the market produces a locked-in shortfall for the life of the tenancy. Ask any agent valuing your property to show you the comparable evidence behind their suggested figure. If they cannot, the figure is a guess, and a guess in this regime costs you money.
Second, agree the application allocation logic before the listing goes live. Who gets first refusal if three applicants apply on the same day? On what grounds? Documenting this in advance protects you against later discrimination claims and gives the agent a clean rule to apply under pressure.
Third, expect your agent to respond inside one working day, not one week. The bidding ban has made application speed the single most important post-listing variable in a let. If your agent's process cannot keep up with the post-RRA market, you will lose qualifying applicants to faster-moving competitors and end up with the lower end of the eligible pool, not the top of it.
Where to look next
The bidding ban is one of five RRA provisions that together make day-one pricing the most important commercial decision in the life of a tenancy. See our analysis of the five levers the Act has removed for the full picture. The annual review process post-bidding-ban is covered in Section 13 rent reviews after the RRA. The valuation methodology we use to set the right asking rent in the first place is described in why we won't take instructions at the wrong price. For the operational position, see Landlords and The Renters' Rights Act 2025.
Sources
- Renters' Rights Act 2025, section 56 — legislation.gov.uk
- Tenant Fees Act 2019 (enforcement and penalty framework) — legislation.gov.uk
- MHCLG, "Rental Bidding Ban: guidance for landlords and letting agents" (1 May 2026)
- Harvey W James, Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5: §22 [BIDDING-001], §26.10 [APPLY-006]
This page reflects Harvey W James' operational understanding of the Renters' Rights Act 2025. It is not legal advice. For the published Act text refer to legislation.gov.uk; for your specific situation seek independent legal advice. Last reviewed against Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 (7 May 2026).