How to manage your own rental property

Managing your own rental property means taking direct responsibility for everything a letting agent would otherwise handle, including finding and referencing tenants, setting up the tenancy, meeting your legal obligations, collecting rent, arranging repairs, and keeping the records HMRC expects. It is the work of property management done by the landlord rather than an agent, and it is entirely lawful for a private landlord in England to self-manage a single let. Most small landlords do. The work is real, but it is routine and learnable, and the savings against agent fees of eight to fifteen per cent of rent are significant. This guide sets out the full process and what the Renters' Rights Act 2025, in force since 1 May 2026, now requires of you.

Should you manage your rental yourself?

Self-management suits landlords who own one or a few properties, live within reasonable travelling distance, and can respond to a tenant within a day or so. It rewards organisation rather than property expertise. The honest test is time and temperament: are you willing to field a maintenance call, chase a late payment, and keep on top of renewal dates, or would that sit badly alongside your other commitments?

Cost is usually the deciding factor, and the gap is often wider than landlords expect once letting fees, renewal charges, and inventory costs are added in. Rather than repeat the figures here, it is worth putting your own numbers to the choice with our property management fees calculator, which sets the real annual cost of an agent against self-managing with software.

Should you use a letting agent instead?

Self-managing with good systems suits most landlords with one to a handful of local properties; a letting agent earns their fee when distance, scale, or time make hands-on management impractical. That is the honest division, and it means the right answer changes with your circumstances rather than being a matter of principle.

An agent is the better choice when you live far from the property, when you are running an HMO with high tenant turnover, when work or life leaves you unable to respond to a tenant within a day or two, or when you simply do not want the phone to be yours. Full management puts a professional between you and the tenancy, and for some landlords that distance is worth every point of the fee. What an agent does not remove is your legal responsibility: compliance obligations sit with the landlord even under full management, so the records still need to exist and you still need sight of them. Our guide to what a letting agent does sets out exactly which tasks the fee covers.

Self-managing is the better choice when the property is local, the sums matter to you, and the real barrier is organisation rather than capability. The tasks in this guide are routine and learnable, and software now closes most of the gap that agents historically filled: rent chasing, deadline tracking, record-keeping and tenant communication were the administrative burden that justified the fee, and they are precisely the parts that automate well. Plenty of landlords also land in between, using a tenant-find service for the setup work and self-managing the tenancy from there, which buys the hardest part of the process for a one-off fee rather than a percentage in perpetuity.

Finding and referencing tenants

The quality of your tenant determines most of your experience as a landlord, so this is the step to take seriously. Advertise the property accurately, then reference every applicant properly: verify income and employment, obtain a previous landlord reference, and run a credit check. Advertising the property well comes first, and our roundup of where to advertise a rental in the UK covers the portals that reach private landlords directly.

You must carry out a Right to Rent check on every adult who will live in the property before the tenancy begins. This is a legal requirement for properties in England, and penalties for letting to someone without the right to rent are substantial. Keep dated copies of the documents you check.

Two points changed under the Renters' Rights Act 2025. Rental bidding is banned, so you must advertise at a fixed rent and cannot invite or accept offers above it. You also cannot unreasonably refuse a tenant's request to keep a pet. Build both into how you advertise and assess applicants from the outset.

Setting up the tenancy correctly

This is where the law changed most, and where outdated advice will cost you. Fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies no longer exist for new lets. Every assured tenancy is now periodic, rolling from month to month, and the tenant can end it with two months' notice. There is no longer a Section 21 no-fault route to possession, so the tenancy agreement and your grounds for ending it both work differently from the pre-2026 model.

Give the tenant a written statement of the main terms, protect the deposit in a government-approved scheme within thirty days of receiving it, and serve the prescribed information. The deposit is capped at five weeks' rent where annual rent is below fifty thousand pounds, and six weeks' rent at or above it. Protecting the deposit correctly and on time is set out at gov.uk on tenancy deposit protection, and getting it wrong now limits your ability to recover possession at all, not just by the old Section 21 route. Provide the current How to Rent guide as well.

You must also register your tenancy and property on the new Private Rented Sector Database. The Act made the largest change to tenancy law in a generation, and our Renters' Rights Act hub sets out what each part means in practice. This guide reflects the law in England as of June 2026.

Staying compliant

Compliance is the part of self-management where mistakes are expensive, and it is mostly a matter of holding a small number of valid certificates and renewing them on time. The core documents for a typical single let are a Gas Safety Record, renewed every twelve months by a Gas Safe registered engineer where the property has gas; an Electrical Installation Condition Report, renewed at least every five years by a qualified electrician; an Energy Performance Certificate with a minimum rating of E before the property is let; and working smoke alarms on every storey, with a carbon monoxide alarm in any room that has a fixed combustion appliance.

Your wider duties, including repairs and safety, are summarised at gov.uk on renting out a property. Depending on the property and the local authority, you may also need an HMO licence, additional licensing, or a selective licence, so check with your council before you let.

From building August alongside thousands of self-managing landlords, the single most common cause of a compliance failure is not ignorance of the rules but a missed renewal date. Keeping every certificate, renewal date, and tenancy document in one place is exactly what August's compliance tools are built to handle.

Collecting rent and handling arrears

Set rent to arrive by standing order on a fixed date and reconcile it each month, so you notice a missed payment immediately rather than weeks later. Clear records matter more than ever, because the route to possession for arrears now runs solely through Section 8 grounds rather than the abolished Section 21 notice.

Under the Act, the mandatory rent arrears ground requires a higher level of arrears than before and a longer notice period, which makes early, documented contact with a struggling tenant both the fairer and the more practical first response. If you need to increase the rent, you can do so once in any twelve-month period using the Section 13 procedure, giving at least two months' notice, and the tenant may refer the increase to the First-tier Tribunal.

Looking after the property

Good maintenance is preventative. A landlord who inspects every few months and acts on small issues spends less over time than one who waits for a tenant to report a problem. Give at least twenty-four hours' written notice before an inspection or a non-emergency visit, and keep a contractor or two you trust on hand for repairs.

The Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law now extend to the private rented sector under the Act, which sets clearer expectations and, for serious hazards such as damp and mould, fixed timescales for investigating and putting things right. Treat tenant-reported damp or disrepair as a priority rather than a negotiation.

Keeping records and managing tax

Self-management is also a small business, and HMRC treats it as one. Keep every receipt and log every deductible expense, from insurance and repairs to mileage for property visits. Improvements are not deductible against rental income, though repairs are, and since April 2020 mortgage interest is no longer deducted from profit but instead gives a twenty per cent tax credit. Our guide to categorising rental expenses covers the detail.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is now being phased in, starting with landlords whose property and self-employment income exceeds fifty thousand pounds, who must keep digital records and send HMRC quarterly updates. The threshold falls in the following two years. Our Making Tax Digital hub explains who is affected and when, and what digital record-keeping involves.

Tools that make self-management manageable

Spreadsheets cope until they do not, usually at the point a certificate lapses or a quarterly MTD update falls due. The right platform removes most of the repetitive admin by tracking rent, storing documents, and prompting renewals before they expire. Our guide to the best property management software for UK landlords compares the main options against the features that actually matter for a small portfolio.

In our experience supporting landlords through the Renters' Rights Act transition, the landlords who found the change least stressful were the ones whose records were already in order, because the new rules reward documentation and punish gaps.

August for new landlords is the guided version of everything above, built for a first tenancy rather than a tenth. Finally, for quick answers to the questions landlords ask most often, see our landlord FAQ.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a qualification or licence to manage my own rental? 

No. In England there is no qualification or accreditation required to self-manage a single let, unless the property falls within an HMO or a selective licensing area, in which case you need the relevant council licence. Scotland and Wales operate separate landlord registration schemes.

How much time does self-managing take? 

For one well-run property with a reliable tenant, active management often comes to a couple of hours a month, rising around tenancy changeovers, renewals, and the occasional repair. Good systems reduce it, disorganisation multiplies it.

Should I use a letting agent or landlord software? 

They solve different problems and are not mutually exclusive. An agent sells you their time, software sells you organisation. If your barrier is hours in the day or distance from the property, an agent fixes that and software does not. If your barrier is admin, records and deadlines, software fixes that at a fraction of the cost, and an agent mostly re-sells it to you inside the management fee.

Can landlords still self-manage after the Renters' Rights Act 2025? 

Yes. The Act changed the rules of tenancy and possession, not your right to manage your own property. What it requires is closer attention to documentation, tenancy setup, and grounds for possession, all of which a self-managing landlord can handle.

How do I deal with a problem tenant now Section 21 has gone? 

Possession now depends on establishing a valid Section 8 ground, such as serious rent arrears or anti-social behaviour, with the correct notice and evidence. The practical defence is prevention: thorough referencing, clear records, and early contact when something goes wrong. If you would rather start with the operational side handled for you, you can set up your properties on August for free.