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This is the question I get asked more than any other about the Renters Rights Act, so here is the short answer first. No, buy to let mortgages have not changed. Products, criteria and pricing are where they were. The Act changed your tenancies, not your lending.
What has changed is some of the paperwork, and one thing in the Act does have a real effect on your mortgage, though it is not the part landlords worry about. It is the rent increase rules, and it bites at remortgage rather than now.
Buy to let mortgage products and criteria have not changed because of the Renters Rights Act.
Assured shorthold tenancies converted to assured periodic tenancies on 1 May 2026.
Some lenders still have documents referring to tenancies that no longer exist.
Rent can only be increased once every twelve months, through the Section 13 process.
That matters at remortgage, because the rent decides how much you can borrow.
What actually changed on 1 May 2026?
The main provisions took effect on 1 May 2026. Assured shorthold tenancies were abolished and existing ASTs converted to assured periodic tenancies. Fixed terms went. Section 21 no fault evictions ended, with the last valid Section 21 notice servable on 30 April 2026 and a deadline of 31 July 2026 to start possession proceedings on notices already served.
There was one carve out. Tenancies with a valid Section 21 or Section 8 notice already served before 1 May 2026 stayed as ASTs through the transitional period, which is why that 31 July backstop existed. For almost every landlord, though, the conversion happened automatically and there was nothing to do.
Alongside that came rules on rent in advance, a ban on rental bidding, and new protections around pets. The private rented sector database begins rolling out from late 2026, and the landlord ombudsman is due in 2028.
None of that is mortgage regulation. It is housing law, and it changed the contract between you and your tenant.
My mortgage conditions say I have to let on an AST. Am I in breach?
This is the fear, and in practice it has not been playing out that way. I have not had a landlord come to me with a lender treating a converted tenancy as a breach, and it would be a strange position for a lender to take given the conversion happened automatically by statute rather than by anything the landlord did.
That said, the documentation gap is real. Mortgage Introducer reported on 27 July 2026 that only some major buy to let lenders had updated their documentation after the Act took effect. Barclays, Nationwide and Saffron Building Society had revised their guidance. Others were still referring to assured shorthold tenancies in materials written for a world that no longer exists.
So you may well read your own mortgage conditions and find wording that no longer matches reality. That is a lender paperwork problem rather than a problem with your loan. If you want certainty on your specific lender, ask them in writing and keep the reply.
Speak to an expert
If you want to know whether your rent supports your next remortgage, I can run the numbers well before your current deal ends. I am a whole of market broker and I handle buy to let cases in personal names and limited companies.
The part that does affect your mortgage: rent can only rise once a year
Here is the bit almost nobody connects to lending.
Under the Act, rent on a periodic tenancy can only be increased once every twelve months, and it has to be done through the statutory Section 13 process using the prescribed Form 4A. The notice period doubled from one month to two. Tenants can challenge the increase at the First-tier Tribunal, and the tribunal can no longer set a rent higher than the figure you proposed in the notice. It can agree your increase in full or set something lower, but not more. Previously it could land on a higher figure, which deterred challenges. It does not deter them now, and a challenge pushes the start date back.
Now think about a buy to let remortgage. Lenders do not lend on the value of the property alone. They apply an interest coverage ratio, testing whether the rent covers the mortgage payment at a stressed interest rate rather than the rate you actually pay. The rent is the input that decides how much you can borrow.
Before May, if a remortgage was going to fall short on the stress test, one option was to bring the rent up to market level fairly quickly. That option is now considerably slower. If you increased the rent eight months ago, you cannot do it again for another four months, and then you owe two months notice on top, and the tenant can push the date back further by challenging it.
The practical consequence: if you have a fixed rate ending in the next twelve months and you think the rent is below market, that is a decision to look at now rather than three weeks before your product expires. You can get a sense of where you stand with the buy to let rent calculator, and the buy to let remortgage page covers how the stress test works.
Has anything changed with consent to let?
Not that I have seen. Consent to let is an arrangement between you and your residential lender, allowing you to rent out a property that is on a residential mortgage, and the process and the questions lenders ask have carried on as before.
The tenancy you grant under that consent will now be an assured periodic tenancy rather than an AST, because that is the only kind available. But the consent itself works the same way.
What about lenders tenancy requirements generally?
Lenders are working through the change. Buy to let mortgage conditions have historically set out what sort of tenancy you may grant, often specifying an AST and sometimes a minimum or maximum term. Those clauses were written against a legal framework that has now gone, and lenders are updating them at different speeds.
For most landlords this makes no practical difference. Where it matters is on anything unusual: letting to a company, a tenancy that is not a standard assured tenancy, student lets, or a property where you were relying on a fixed term for some reason. If your letting arrangement is not the ordinary case, check the current wording with the lender rather than the version you were given at completion.
What should a landlord do about all this?
Very little on the mortgage side. Your loan is fine, your product is fine, and nothing about the Act stops you remortgaging.
Three things are worth doing. Check whether your rent is where it should be, given that adjusting it is now a slow process and it drives what you can borrow. Find out when your current deal ends, and start looking earlier than you used to. And if you have anything non standard about how you let, get the lender current position in writing.
If you are a landlord in Hampshire trying to work out whether the rent supports your next remortgage, that is exactly the sort of thing worth checking early. I am a mortgage broker in Winchester and I work across the whole market on buy to let cases. There is more on the buy to let mortgage hub.
Sources: GOV.UK Renters Rights Act information sheet 2026; Mortgage Introducer, 27 July 2026.
If you are reading this before buying your first rental rather than as an existing landlord, the same rules land very differently. I have written separately on what the landlord sell-off means if you are just starting out.
For landlords deciding to exit rather than adapt, I have set out what the Act means for a sale in practice in selling a tenanted property.
And for tenants reading this because a landlord is selling around them, buying the house you rent covers your options.
Need Personal Mortgage Advice?
This guide explains how the Renters Rights Act interacts with buy to let lending. It is not legal advice on your tenancies, and for that you should speak to a letting agent or housing solicitor. The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate most buy to let mortgages.
