The Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) has served as the cornerstone of the private rented sector since the Housing Act 1988. That era concluded on 1st May 2026.
With the Renters’ Rights Act now fully enacted across England, fixed-term ASTs have been abolished in favour of a unified system: the Assured Periodic Tenancy (APT).
This means every new residential agreement is now statutory periodic from the outset. Relying on legacy AST templates is no longer viable and risks significant compliance failures under the new legislative framework.
- What’s actually changed in the paperwork?
- Why a “bargain” template might cost you
- The OpenRent periodic agreement
You can download the our Assured Periodic Tenancy agreement for free right here. It’s fully updated for the Renters’ Rights Act. Get Your APT
What’s actually changed in the paperwork?
The biggest shift is that we’ve moved away from fixed terms. You can no longer lock a tenant in for 6 or 12 months. Instead, the tenancy just rolls along from day one until someone decides it’s time to move on.
Here is what your new agreement needs to cover:
- The contract is “rolling” or periodic.
- Tenants can hand in their notice at any point (usually two months).
- You can only increase the rent once a year using the official Section 13 (Form 4A) process. Any old rent review clauses tucked into the back of your contract won’t stand up in court anymore.
Why a “bargain” template might cost you
You must take a moment to check where your new tenancy agreement actually comes from. A quick Google search will still throw up “free APT templates”, but many of these haven’t been properly updated for the new rules. Some have not been reviewed by legal specialists at all.
Small details matter now more than ever. If your agreement doesn’t align with the current requirements, including how data is recorded and shared under the new framework, you could end up with avoidable compliance issues and potential penalties.
It’s one of those areas where doing a bit of due diligence upfront is far less painful than fixing problems later.
The OpenRent periodic agreement
We have rebuilt our 2026 tenancy agreement with our legal team to make sure it stands up to the new rules while staying easy to follow in real life. No dense legal jargon, just clear terms that work for everyday letting.
It’s also shaped by experience, with hundreds of thousands of tenancies handled through OpenRent, so it reflects what landlords and tenants actually need, not just what looks good on paper.
To keep things simple, we offer two main agreement types depending on how you like to run your property.
1) Joint tenancies (the “whole house” approach)
This is the classic setup where all tenants sign a single tenancy agreement and share equal responsibility for the rent.
In legal terms, they are “jointly and severally liable”, meaning each tenant is responsible for the full rent if someone else does not pay.
With a rolling tenancy, it works slightly differently from fixed terms. If one tenant gives notice to leave, the entire tenancy ends for everyone in the household. You would then need to either set up a new agreement with the remaining tenants or bring in a completely new group.
This setup is popular because it’s often simpler to manage and keeps one clear contract for the whole property. It works particularly well for groups who know each other and plan to move in and out together.
Often, the trade-off is flexibility. You have less control over individual changes within the household, and one person’s decision to leave can trigger a reset of the whole tenancy.
You can set this up through the OpenRent Assured Periodic Tenancy (APT) as part of our Rent Now tenancy creation service. We will populate the agreement with your property and tenant details, handle digital signatures and you can even add any custom clauses if needed
Ready to use OpenRent to set up your tenancy? Begin by creating your whole property or room advert on our site. Add Listing
2) Individual tenancies (the “room-by-room” approach)
In this setup, each tenant signs their own agreement for their bedroom, while sharing communal areas such as the kitchen and bathroom.
Many landlords who let rooms this way value the flexibility it brings. Tenants can come and go independently, and if one person moves out, the remaining tenancies continue as normal, so you are not left with an empty property because one flatmate decides to leave early.
There are a few practical considerations as well. Council tax and utility bills will usually sit with you as the landlord, and are often included in the rent to keep things simple for tenants.
If you advertise a room on OpenRent, we will assume you are setting up an individual tenancy by default. That said, it’s worth making sure this setup suits your property and situation before going ahead, as it works differently from a joint tenancy.