The Information Sheet duty and the 31 May 2026 deadline

When the Renters' Rights Act 2025 converted every assured shorthold tenancy in England into a periodic assured tenancy, millions of people found the rules governing their home had changed without anyone asking them. The Information Sheet duty was Parliament's answer to that: a one-off obligation on landlords to put an official explanation of the new law into the hands of tenants who were already renting. This guide explains who was owed one, why the format matters, what the 31 May 2026 deadline required, and what to do if it went past unnoticed.

What the Information Sheet is

It is a specific document - the Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet 2026, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It explains in general terms how the reforms change a tenant's position: the end of no-fault eviction, the shift to rolling periodic tenancies, how rent can be increased and how it can be challenged.

Crucially, it is not a document a landlord writes. The duty is to give the tenant that sheet. A well-meaning letter summarising the changes, however accurate, is not the thing the regulations require. The sheet is prescribed alongside the written statement of terms by SI 2026/324, and the two duties are designed to fit together: new tenants get a statement of their terms, existing tenants get an explanation of what changed underneath them.

Who was owed one

Written and partly written tenancies

The duty applied to tenants on an assured tenancy that existed before 1 May 2026 and was written, or partly written. That covers the overwhelming majority of private lettings, including tenancies granted years earlier that had long since rolled on past their original fixed term. The deadline was 31 May 2026 - a month from commencement.

Wholly oral tenancies

Where a pre-commencement tenancy had no written agreement at all, the landlord owed a written statement of terms instead, by the same date. The logic is that a tenant with nothing in writing needs the terms of their own tenancy recorded first, not a general explainer.

New tenancies

Tenancies granted on or after 1 May 2026 were never in scope. Those tenants get a written statement of terms before the tenancy is entered into, which sets out the new position directly.

The deadline, worked through

Consider a flat let on a written assured shorthold tenancy granted on 12 March 2024, still occupied by the same tenant in 2026. On 1 May 2026 that tenancy converted automatically into a periodic assured tenancy - the mechanics are in periodic tenancies explained. The landlord had until 31 May 2026, thirty days later, to get the official sheet to the tenant.

Now multiply that. A landlord with six pre-existing written tenancies owed six sheets inside the same thirty-day window, and the duty is owed per tenancy rather than per property or per portfolio. Where there are joint tenants, official guidance says a copy must be given to every tenant named on the tenancy agreement, so do not assume one will pass it on. Portfolio landlords who worked through their properties alphabetically in June rather than May were late on every tenancy they reached after the 31st. If you are unsure whether a particular letting was in scope, the compliance checker will tell you.

How to serve it so that it counts

The distinction between a link and an attachment looks pedantic until you consider what the duty is for. A link can rot, can be behind a login on a work device, or can simply be ignored. An attached PDF is a copy the tenant holds.

If you missed the deadline

The duty does not evaporate because the date has passed. If you have tenancies that predate 1 May 2026 and you never served the sheet, the right move is to serve it now and document it: attach the official PDF, send it to each tenant, and keep the sent message. Late compliance is not the same as no compliance, and a local authority weighing up enforcement can take remedial action into account.

Failing to serve the Information Sheet carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000. If the failure continues more than 28 days after a penalty, or the landlord breaches a penalty duty again within five years, it becomes a criminal offence, and the council can impose up to £40,000 instead of prosecuting. The practical distinction those two levels draw is between a landlord who slipped and a landlord who is not really trying, which is exactly why a dated record of late service is worth having. There is more on how that works in what happens if you get it wrong, and the full run of dates is in the landlord compliance timeline.

What a good record looks like is not complicated. For each tenancy you want the date the sheet was sent, the method, the name of every tenant it went to, and a retained copy of the message or delivery note. That is a five-minute job per tenancy done contemporaneously and a difficult reconstruction done two years later, which is the argument for doing it now rather than adding it to a list.

The government also publishes a landlord checklist covering this and the other commencement duties, which is a reasonable place to sanity check a portfolio.

If you are a tenant who never received one

Not receiving the sheet does not change your legal position. Your tenancy converted, your protection against no-fault eviction applies, and the rent increase rules apply, whether or not anyone told you. The sheet is an information duty, not the source of the rights it describes.

You can read the official sheet yourself at any time, and you can raise the omission with your local authority's private rented sector or environmental health team, who enforce these duties. It is often worth asking the landlord first: a landlord who forgot one duty in the commencement rush may well have forgotten others, and a polite request can surface that faster than a complaint. A wider walkthrough of what you are now entitled to is in tenant rights under the Act.