Rent Protection — how we protect a landlord's income under the Renters' Rights Act 2025
Landlords have lost four levers they used to rely on to manage rent risk under the Renters' Rights Act 2025: bidding above the asking price is banned (RRA s.6), rent in advance above one month is prohibited beyond the first payment cycle, fixed-term tenancies have been replaced with assured periodic tenancies, and a tenant can give two months' notice to leave from day one. The traditional protections (12 months upfront, six-and-six, fixed-term commitment, the option to refuse a Section 13 challenge) are not coming back. What replaces them is a four-product rent-protection architecture that we build into every managed tenancy: rent guarantee insurance, first-month's-rent protection, Section 13 rent-increase protection, and a professional guarantor service for tenants who cannot provide a UK guarantor or pay rent up front. Every product is RRA-native. We cover all rent levels including rents above £2,500 per calendar month, which most agents will not.
Why landlords are right to worry now
Pre-RRA, a landlord with a £4,000 pcm new-build in Canary Wharf could ask an overseas student for 12 months' rent up front, get six-and-six from a corporate tenant on a fixed term, and rely on a Section 21 if the relationship broke down. None of that is available post-1 May 2026. The first payment is one month's rent plus deposit, and after that the regime is periodic. If the tenant stops paying in month two, there is no fixed-term commitment to enforce and Section 21 has been abolished. The only route to possession is Section 8 (see the Section 8 grounds explainer for the mandatory and discretionary grounds and our internal arrears workflow). Section 8 typically runs four to nine months from notice to bailiff under current court load, which means the landlord can face a long arrears period before vacant possession.
Most landlord enquiries we now field open with three questions: what happens if the tenant cannot pay 12 months upfront, what happens if the tenant stops paying after move-in, and what happens if the tenant refuses a lawful Section 13 increase. The rent-protection architecture below answers each one explicitly. None of it is generic letting-agent reassurance. Every claim below is grounded in a specific Goodlord policy clause or product specification, with the Insured Event number for cross-reference.
Goodlord Rent Protection and Legal Expenses — the headline rent guarantee
The headline product is Goodlord Rent Protection and Legal Expenses insurance, underwritten by Hadron UK Insurance Company Limited and administered by Elevate Specialty Limited under FCA authorisation. The cover provides up to £100,000 of indemnity per insured property and pays out across twelve Insured Events. The headline ones for income protection are these.
Rent arrears until vacant possession (Insured Event 2). While the tenant remains in the property and the landlord is pursuing repossession through Section 8, the insurer pays 100% of the monthly rent owed under the tenancy agreement up to the £100,000 limit. There is no cap on the number of months covered. That is the headline differentiator versus the broader market, where 15-month caps are typical. The cover continues at 90% of the monthly rent for up to six weeks after vacant possession is obtained, while the property is being re-let. Both bands are subject to the standard £10,000 per calendar month rent ceiling. For rents above £10,000 pcm we arrange individually underwritten cover on request; see the section below on rent-level coverage.
Nil excess if reported within 45 days (Insured Event 2 + General Conditions). A claim reported within 45 days of the first missed rent payment attracts no excess. A claim reported between 46 and 90 days carries an excess of one month's rent. After 90 days no benefit is payable. Our operational rule is that arrears trigger a Day 1 chase on the morning the standing order should have hit our client account, with a formal arrears notification under the Goodlord workflow if the rent is not received by Day 14. The full arrears workflow runs to the timeline in the Section 8 grounds explainer and reflects ETC v2.1.5 §70 [POSSESSION-002]. The point is that the 45-day window is never the binding constraint, because we file inside two weeks.
Eviction costs covered (Insured Event 1). The insurer pays the costs of pursuing possession through Section 8, including serving the notice, instructing a panel solicitor at the Standard Terms hourly rate, paying court fees, and arranging a bailiff if needed. There is no separate landlord excess for the legal costs. The cover is conditional on Goodlord's pre-action steps being followed, on the notice being correctly served, and on the tenancy being statutorily compliant (deposit protected, prescribed information served, gas and electrical safety certificates in date, selective licensing in place where required). Those are the conditions every well-managed tenancy meets in any case; they are not new compliance burdens.
Deposit top-up of £1,000 for arrears and dilapidations (Insured Event 2). Where the deposit is insufficient to cover both unpaid rent and end-of-tenancy damage, the insurer pays up to a further £1,000 on top of the deposit. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps the deposit at five weeks' rent for properties with annual rent below £50,000 and six weeks' rent for properties at or above £50,000. A five-week deposit on a £3,000 pcm property is approximately £3,461, which can easily be exhausted by a single month of arrears plus modest damage. The £1,000 top-up closes that gap.
First month's rent protection — the post-RRA tenancy-execution problem
Under the RRA, a tenancy agreement is executed and keys are handed over at the start of the periodic regime, before the first month's rent has cleared in many cases. The pre-RRA practice of holding keys until cleared funds is harder to operate under the periodic regime and the bidding ban. Goodlord's Insured Event 11 covers exactly this scenario.
What it does. Where the tenancy is set up through the Goodlord platform, the keys are handed over, and the tenant or anyone on their behalf then fails to pay the first month's rent, the insurer pays up to the value of that first month's rent. The claim must be reported within seven days of the tenancy start date.
What it requires. The tenancy must use Goodlord's tenancy set-up process, including the Goodlord first-month-rent collection. We use the Goodlord platform on every managed tenancy as standard. If the first month's rent later arrives from the tenant, we reimburse the insurer; if a Rent Protection claim is subsequently made under Insured Event 2 for later-month arrears, the first-month payment is set off against it. The cover does not currently apply in Wales.
Why this matters. This is the single most important product addition for the post-RRA regime. Pre-RRA, a landlord who insisted on cleared funds before key handover could effectively avoid first-month rent risk. Post-RRA, the periodic regime and the prohibition on conditional fee structures make that approach unworkable. The first-month cover is the structural answer.
Section 13 rent-increase protection — for contested increases
Under the RRA, the only lawful route to increase rent during an assured periodic tenancy is a Section 13 notice under the Housing Act 1988 (as amended by the RRA). The tenant has the right to challenge the proposed rent at the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), which determines what the open-market rent ought to be. Goodlord's Insured Event 10 covers the period between service of the notice and the Tribunal's decision.
What it covers. Where a valid Section 13 notice is served, the proposed rent is at market value, and the tenant applies to the Tribunal, the insurer pays the difference between the rent the tenant is actually paying and the rent the landlord proposed, for up to six months or until the Tribunal issues its decision (whichever is sooner). Payments are made monthly in arrears against evidence of the actual rent received.
The market-value condition is the operative constraint. The cover only pays out if the Tribunal finds the proposed rent was at open-market value. If the Tribunal sets the rent below the proposed level, any payments already made are repayable. This is where our London Rental Analysts positioning earns its keep: every Section 13 increase we serve is supported by current comparable-rents evidence drawn from the same three-year market dataset that underpins our day-one valuations. The Valuation Guide v2.0 methodology (Days on Market, Four Week Rule, August demand peak, Monday-launch effect) applies to renewal pricing as well as new-let pricing. A Section 13 served against the analyst comparable set is materially more likely to be upheld at Tribunal than one served against a generic agent's gut feel.
What it does not replace. If the proposed rent is above the maximum affordable level shown on the tenant's referencing report (the Goodlord affordability rating, see below), the increased rent above that ceiling is not covered under Insured Event 2 Rent Protection. The structural answer is to keep the Section 13 increase inside the affordability headroom captured at referencing, which is part of how we pitch renewal increases on managed tenancies. Where the referencing affordability is tight, we model the increase against the tenant's headroom before service.
Goodlord Guarantor — for overseas tenants and tenants without a UK guarantor
The other half of the post-RRA puzzle is the tenant who, pre-RRA, would have paid six or twelve months of rent up front. Most often these are overseas tenants, international students, corporate relocators, and any tenant whose income or credit profile sits outside the standard UK affordability test but who has the cash to pay up front. The RRA prohibits rent in advance beyond one month from the second payment cycle onwards. The traditional landlord question ("can they pay 12 months upfront?") is no longer a workable risk filter. Goodlord Guarantor is the structural replacement.
What it is. Goodlord Guarantor is a professional guarantor service. Instead of relying on a friend or family member as a personal guarantor, the tenant pays Goodlord a one-time fee equal to one month's rent at the start of the tenancy, and Goodlord becomes the guarantor for up to three years of the tenancy. The product is built specifically to work under the Renters' Rights Act and is backed by Goodlord's underlying Rent Protection insurance, so a landlord's rent and legal-expenses cover continues to apply normally.
Why this answers the overseas-tenant question. International tenants with no UK credit history are explicitly eligible for Goodlord Guarantor provided the tenancy meets a tenancy-affordability rating of 2.0 or higher (verified at referencing) and the rent is no more than £3,000 per calendar month under the standard product. Full-time UK and international students in Higher Education are eligible without meeting the income requirement. That is the operative difference: a Russian Master's student with no UK credit footprint can be referenced, approved, and moved in under our standard workflow, with a Goodlord Guarantor in place for the full three-year horizon, without the landlord taking unsecured credit risk and without the tenant paying twelve months up front. The same applies to corporate relocators on month-one UK earnings, to international postdocs, and to tenants moving from international assignments. Overseas tenants are not an exception case on our managed tenancies; they are a standard pathway.
Cost to the landlord. Zero. The product is 100% tenant-funded. The one-month tenant fee is a one-off payment to Goodlord, not to the landlord. The landlord receives the full benefit of the professional guarantor with no premium, no admin, and no separate paperwork. The rent protection insurance that sits behind it is paid via the standard policy structure (see the section below on how we package this).
Coverage limits. The standard Goodlord Guarantor product covers Assured Periodic Tenancies in England at rents up to £3,000 pcm. For rents above £3,000 pcm where a professional guarantor is needed, we work with Goodlord directly on case-by-case underwriting; pricing on request.
Rent coverage at all levels, including above £2,500 pcm
Most letting agents cap their landlord rent protection at the lower end of the market. £2,500 pcm is a common ceiling because the underlying Goodlord Rent Protection policy specifies a maximum monthly rent of £10,000 per calendar month, and many agents simply do not have the operational infrastructure to manage claims at the upper end, so they exclude high-rent properties from their offering. We do not. The standard policy covers rents up to £10,000 pcm without further underwriting, which captures the great majority of London new-build and prime-residential lettings we handle. For rents above £10,000 pcm (typical of large new-build apartments, family townhouses, and corporate-let mansion blocks) we arrange individually underwritten rent-protection cover through our broker channel; pricing depends on rent level, tenant profile, and specific property risk, and is available on request. There is no upper rent at which we will not protect a managed landlord's income.
How this fits into our standard managed offering
For managed landlords, the rent-protection architecture is built into the tenancy set-up at no additional management fee. Every managed tenancy is set up on the Goodlord platform, which is the precondition for Insured Event 11 First Month's Rent Protection and the standard route for arrears claims. Every tenant we approve is referenced to the Goodlord Pro or Priority tier, which is the precondition for both the rent protection policy and the Goodlord Guarantor eligibility test. Every Section 13 increase is supported by the comparable-rents evidence that underpins our Insured Event 10 cover. The arrears workflow is Goodlord-integrated and triggers a claim well inside the 45-day nil-excess window.
The Goodlord Rent Protection and Legal Expenses insurance is currently offered as a per-tenancy policy that the landlord purchases at tenancy set-up. The annual premium is published in the Landlords fee architecture; the actual figure depends on rent level. For rents within standard cover (up to £10,000 pcm) the premium is a fixed annual fee per tenancy. For rents above the standard ceiling, individually quoted premiums apply at instruction. There is no insurer-side commission paid back to Harvey W James. The premium goes to the underwriter (Hadron UK), the administrator (Elevate Specialty), and the platform (Goodlord), with no broker spread retained by us. We earn our fees on the management contract; the insurance is at cost.
What landlords need to do
For a new instruction, the operational pathway is straightforward. Instruct us to manage the tenancy on the standard managed terms set out in the Landlords page. We set up the tenancy on Goodlord, reference the tenant or tenants to the Pro or Priority tier, arrange the appropriate rent-protection cover (Standard or High-Rent), trigger Goodlord Guarantor at referencing where the tenant profile warrants it, and serve any Section 13 increases on renewal against current comparable-rents evidence. The landlord receives a single statement covering rent, deposit, insurance, and management charges with all relevant policy references in the same place. Claims are routed through the Goodlord dashboard with our aftercare team operating the workflow on the landlord's behalf.
For an existing instruction where the tenancy is in place but the rent-protection architecture has not been set up, we can add cover on the next anniversary or earlier if the tenant agrees to a re-referencing exercise. The General Exclusion 2 ("Existing tenancies at the start of the policy") imposes a 60-day standdown on new cover where the tenancy started more than seven days before policy inception, unless there is unbroken equivalent cover from a prior provider. We handle the documentation of any unbroken-cover position with the new insurer at instruction.
Where to look next
For the full landlord pitch and the post-RRA fee architecture, see the Landlords page. For the regulatory framework that drives all of the above, see The Renters' Rights Act 2025. For the new-build-specialist context (which most rents above the £10,000 pcm ceiling sit inside), see New-Build Specialists. For the Section 8 grounds and the arrears workflow that the rent-protection claims sit alongside, see the Section 8 grounds explainer. For terminology, see the Glossary. For specific questions, see the FAQ.
Useful contacts and registers
- Landlord and tenancy management: 020 3865 1500, landlord@harveywjames.com
- General enquiries: info@harveywjames.com
- Aftercare and arrears workflow: aftercare@harveywjames.com
- Property Redress Scheme (agent redress): membership PRS010914 — verify here.
- Propertymark Client Money Protection: membership M0243538 — verify here.
- Information Commissioner's Office (data protection): registration ZA312485 — verify here.
This page describes Harvey W James' operational approach to landlord rent protection under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (in particular the rent-in-advance and bidding restrictions in sections 6 and 8 of the Act and the assured periodic tenancy regime in Part 1), the Housing Act 1988 section 13 (rent variation), and the Tenant Fees Act 2019 (deposit caps). The rent-protection insurance referenced is the Goodlord Landlord Rent Protection and Legal Expenses Insurance underwritten by Hadron UK Insurance Company Limited and administered by Elevate Specialty Limited; the Goodlord Guarantor service is operated by Oh Goodlord Limited. Insured Event references are to the Goodlord policy wording dated 11.2025; cover terms, limits, and exclusions are as set out in the policy and supersede any summary on this page. Premium quotations are subject to underwriting and the tenancy meeting eligibility criteria including referencing outcomes. This is not legal or financial advice; for your specific situation seek independent advice. Last reviewed against Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 (22 May 2026).