On 1 May 2026, the ground rules of lettings changed.
Section 21 is gone. Every possession now stands or falls on evidenced Section 8 grounds — and the Renters' Rights Act polices the process itself, not just the outcome. The agencies that come through this are the ones whose records were built during tenancy setup, not assembled at dispute time.
Civil penalties for process failures
Misusing a possession ground is now a criminal offence for agents, with civil penalties up to £40k.
Written Statement fines
Failing to prove service of the written statement of terms carries £7k fines — £40k if it continues.
Move-in payment order
Rent taken before the agreement is executed is a prohibited payment — it must be returned.
The process, enforced — and recorded as it runs.
Application lands
Forwarded from your portal or inbox; details parsed and filed.
Checks run in order
Affordability, right to rent, credit, references — deterministic code, not judgement calls.
A person approves every gate
Decisions, sends and exceptions wait for your team, and the log records who.
Move-in, sequenced
Deposit, signatures, keys — enforced order, every step on the record.
Every check runs. Nothing decides without you.
Affordability maths, right to rent, credit, references — run in order, automatically, the moment an application lands.
The numbers are code, not guesswork,and the decision is never the machine's: the pipeline stops at a gate and waits for your negotiator to approve it.
Keys never move before money and contracts.
Deposit protected, agreement countersigned, then keys — in that order, every time, whoever is on shift.
Try to skip a step and the engine refuses — and writes the refusal into the record. When a decision is questioned in three years, the answer is one click, not a shoebox of emails.
Drafted for you. Sent by you.
Reference requests, chase-ups, decline letters — drafted in your agency's tone and waiting in the outbox.
Nothing sends itself. A person reads, edits if they like, and clicks send — and the log records who. This is a tool that works for your team, not a replacement for it.
An audit trail a tribunal can read.
Every check, every decision, every refusal — logged as it happens, with who acted and why.
Under the Renters' Rights Act, showing your working is the job. The evidence log assembles itself from the audit trail and exports to a document you can hand over.
Your whole desk, triaged.
Most tools show you everything; this one sorts it. Needs you, running, done — the morning's priorities in one glance.
Automation never jumps the queue. Anything waiting on a human sits at the top until a human deals with it.
The demo in your inbox is real.
Your brand, your current listings — built from your public website and nothing else. Every applicant in it is synthetic and obviously named that way. Click anything; it's yours to break.
Tenancy Engine is built and run by one person — me. I build every agency's demo personally, and I'll be the one answering your email. Small is the point: your workflow gets studied properly, not templated.