Section 13 notice template (Form 4A, England 2026)

A free section 13 notice template for private landlords in England. Enter the current rent, the new rent and a few dates, and it fills in Form 4A, the notice proposing a new rent used since 1 May 2026, with the earliest date the increase can legally start. Download it as Word, or print it or save it as a PDF.

Luke AshtonFounder of Bricky Bot and Based Lettings · Updated 15 October 2026

When the new rent can start

The date in question 4.6 has to clear every limit in section 13 of the Housing Act 1988, as amended by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. Each one is “not earlier than”, so the latest of them wins, and then the date moves on to the next first day of a rent period.

GOV.UK’s landlord guide gives the example: an increase that took effect on 1 February 2026 means the next can’t start until 1 February 2027. Fifty-two weeks on is 31 January 2027, and the next rent period begins on the 1st.

The 53-week rule

Fifty-two weeks is a day short of a year (two in a leap year), so increases would creep earlier every year. To stop that, if the 53rd week after the last increase begins more than six days before the anniversary of the first increase after 11 February 2003, you wait 53 weeks instead. That’s why Form 4A asks for that date in 4.4, and the template checks it for you.

Two points are open to argument. The law counts only increases made by a section 13 notice or the tribunal, plus rent review clause increases before 1 May 2026. The form asks for any increase, and so does the template, which is the cautious reading. Where a fixed term rolled into a periodic tenancy, it’s not settled whether “the tenancy began” means the original start or the roll-over. If the date is close, take advice or allow a few extra weeks.

How to fill in Form 4A, question by question

You don’t have to use the GOV.UK PDF itself: the regulations (SI 2026/354) accept a form “substantially to the like effect”. The template keeps the form’s questions, notes and wording word for word, so only your answers change. GOV.UK warns that changing the wording can make a notice invalid, so don’t edit the fixed text in the Word file.

How to serve a section 13 notice

• Follow your tenancy agreement if it says how notices are served. If it doesn’t, the form says: hand it to the tenant, leave it at the tenant’s address, or send it by registered post.
• Email only if the agreement allows it. You can complete and sign the form electronically either way.
• Every tenant on a joint tenancy gets it. Keep a copy, and note how and when you served it (the template leaves a line for that).
• Count from when they get it. If you post it, use the day it will arrive. A start date a period later than the earliest costs you one period’s increase; a date that’s too early can cost the whole notice.

If the tenant challenges it

The tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) on form MR1 or online, for a £47 fee. The application must reach the tribunal before the start date in 4.6. You can reply on form MR2, and the tenant can respond.

• The tribunal decides what the home would let for on the open market on the same terms, and it can look at the condition of the property. The result may be lower than you proposed, but it can’t be higher (s.14ZB).
• The new rent isn’t backdated. It starts from your date if the decision comes first, or otherwise from the first rent period after the decision. For hardship the tribunal can set a later date, up to two months after its decision.
• If the tenant doesn’t apply and you don’t agree something else, the new rent starts on the date in 4.6.

HMOs and room lets

• One notice per tenancy. Each room let is its own tenancy with its own start date, so each has its own earliest date. A joint tenancy of a whole house gets one notice naming every tenant.
• Bills-inclusive rent: fill in 4.7. Most room rents include council tax, energy, water and broadband. Show each charge now and proposed, so the tenant can see how much of the increase is bills. Our council tax checker gives this year’s bill for the house.
• Set rents you can defend. The tribunal compares the room with similar lets on the same terms, including what’s in the rent. Work out each room’s new rent with the rent increase calculator, then run it through the rental yield calculator.
• New tenancies start the clock. Our tenancy agreement template states that rent increases follow section 13. A tenancy that has to end uses the section 8 notice template instead.

Increasing rent before and after 1 May 2026

• Rent review clauses: a clause saying the rent goes up each year has no effect for increases after 1 May 2026. GOV.UK: an increase agreed before then that takes effect after it won’t apply.
• Clause increases before 1 May 2026 still count: the next section 13 increase can’t start until 52 weeks after one took effect.
• Old notices: a section 13 notice on the old Form 4 served before 1 May 2026 still runs under the old rules. Anything served now uses Form 4A.
• No more fixed terms: every private assured tenancy is now periodic, with rent periods of a month or less, so Form 4A only takes weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly rent. A tenant who moved in mid-month usually paid a short first period; our pro rata rent calculator works that out.

What Bricky Bot does (and doesn’t)

Bricky Bot is the HMO management software we built to run our own rooms. It doesn’t write or serve section 13 notices, it doesn’t remind you when a rent review is due, and it never sends anything to a tenant without a person approving it. It keeps the figures a notice needs:

• Each tenancy’s current rent, start date and rent day.
• A monthly rent account per tenancy, worked out from your bank statement lines. When the rent changes, past months keep the amount that was due then.
• Your own documents sent for e-signature through your own signing account, once you approve it.

Social housing, Wales and Scotland

• Social housing: Form 4, not 4A (both are on GOV.UK’s assured tenancy forms page).
• Wales: a notice of variation of rent, form RHW12, under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016: two months’ notice, at most once a year.
• Scotland: a rent-increase notice with three months’ notice; the tenant can refer it to a rent officer.

Questions landlords ask

Sources

• GOV.UK: Assured tenancy forms (updated 1 May 2026): Form 4A (05.26) and its notes
• Housing Act 1988, section 13 (as amended by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025) and section 14ZB (when a tribunal rent takes effect)
• GOV.UK: Assured periodic tenancies, a guide for landlords: rent increases (updated 13 October 2026)
• GOV.UK: Apply for an open-market rent determination (updated 10 August 2026)
• The Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Prescribed Forms and Transitional Provisions) (England) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/354); the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 2) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/421)
• Checked 15 October 2026.