If you let property in Wales and you did not give your contract-holders an updated written statement by 14 June 2026, compensation has been accruing against you every day since. It is capped, it is calculable, and it stops the moment you serve.

There is also a second exposure that most coverage of this deadline ignored entirely. The same reforms created new criminal offences under a separate Welsh Act, enforced by local authorities, with consequences for your Rent Smart Wales licence. The written statement is the paperwork half. The conduct half is the one that ends up in front of a magistrate.

This guide covers both, and the single action that stops the first one today.

What Actually Changed on 1 June 2026

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 is overwhelmingly an England statute. Around one per cent of it reaches Wales, and that one per cent commenced on 1 June 2026, a month after the English provisions went live on 1 May. The Welsh Government guidance for landlords on the 2026 Amendment Regulations sets out the position.

It did two separate things.

First, it amended the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. New sections 54A and 54B became new fundamental provisions, which must be incorporated as fundamental terms into most occupation contracts:

• Section 54A gives the contract-holder the right to permit a person under 18 to live in or visit the dwelling. The landlord must not interfere with or restrict that right unless the interference or restriction is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

• Section 54B prohibits a landlord from barring a contract-holder from being a benefits claimant.

Where these sit in your written statement depends on which model contract you use. In the periodic standard contract they follow term 12, as terms 12A and 12B. Other model written statements number them differently, so check the version you actually issued rather than assuming.

Second, it amended the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 by inserting a new Part 2A and sections 8A to 8J, and by renaming the Act itself to the Renting Homes (Fees, Discrimination etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 to reflect the expanded scope. This is the enforcement half, and it is where the offences live.

Fundamental terms are not optional wording. They are the load-bearing provisions the 2016 Act requires every occupation contract to carry. When Parliament inserts new ones, your existing written statements go out of date by operation of law, whether or not you touched a document.

Which is why you were also required to tell your contract-holders.

The Deadline You May Have Missed

You had until 14 June 2026 to give every affected contract-holder either:

1. An updated written statement of the whole occupation contract incorporating the new fundamental terms, or

2. A written statement setting out only the new terms, making clear where they sit within the existing statement.

Either discharges the duty. The second is faster, and is what most managing agents used.

Note the pattern. Fourteen days is the same window that applies to a written statement at the start of an occupation contract, and the same one that applies when you vary a contract mid-term. Wales runs on a 14-day clock for written statements. The June change was no exception, and if you have internalised that rhythm you will handle the next amendment better than you handled this one.

Which Contracts Were Caught

Not everything. Before you serve indiscriminately, work out what you are actually dealing with:

The supported accommodation carve-out is deliberate. Legislation.gov.uk records section 54A as excluded from 1 June 2026 by regulation 4 of the Renting Homes (Model Written Statements of Contract) (Wales) (Amendments etc.) Regulations 2026. If you operate supported housing, do not assume the general position applies to you.

Exposure One: Section 87 Compensation

This is where landlords underestimate the position, because there is no fixed penalty and no council fine attached to the written statement duty. The remedy sits with the contract-holder, and it is sharper than a one-off charge.

Under section 87 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016:

That last row is the operational one. Your contract-holder does not need to sue you. They can lawfully withhold rent up to the value of the compensation owed, and you have no arrears claim for any amount properly set off.

Follow that through, because it is where this becomes genuinely dangerous. A landlord who sees rent stop arriving, treats it as arrears, and serves a possession notice on that basis is serving a notice built on a debt that does not legally exist. The set-off is a complete answer. You lose the claim, you pay costs, and you have created a documented history of enforcement action against a contract-holder exercising a statutory right, which is not a helpful file to be carrying into a licence renewal.

What It Costs in Cash

Multiply by your Welsh portfolio. Twelve properties at £900 is £21,600 of avoidable liability from a single unserved document, and the two-month ceiling on each is reached in early August, which, as of today, has passed.

One honest caveat on the start date. There is a live question about whether the clock runs from the beginning of the period or from expiry of the 14 days. The Senedd's scrutiny committee raised precisely this ambiguity about the equivalent provision for new contracts and asked Welsh Government to make the drafting clearer, and the Act's explanatory notes point towards the earlier date. Do not build your exposure calculation around the more generous interpretation. If the amount is material, get advice on the start date rather than assuming the clock began later.

Exposure Two: The Criminal Offence Nobody Is Writing About

Serving the written statement fixes your paperwork. It does not fix your conduct.

The new Part 2A of the Renting Homes (Fees, Discrimination etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 makes it an offence for a landlord, or a person acting or purporting to act on a landlord's behalf, to discriminate in relation to occupation contracts against people who would have children living with or visiting them, or who are benefits claimants. The offences are punishable on summary conviction by fines.

Four features matter more than the headline:

• "Purporting to act on a landlord's behalf" catches your agent:
  If your letting agent screens out applicants with children, or applies an affordability policy that excludes benefit income, the offence is not confined to them. Instructing an agent is not a firewall.

• The advertising carve-out is narrower than it looks:
  Conduct is not an offence under section 8A(1) or 8B(1) where it consists only of publishing advertisements, disseminating information, or providing a means for prospective landlords and contract-holders to communicate directly, and where the person does nothing else in relation to the dwelling. That exemption is built for portals and listing sites. A landlord or agent who advertises and then also views, references, selects or contracts is doing something else in relation to the dwelling, and is outside it.

   

• Enforcement sits with local authorities, alongside Rent Smart Wales:
  The 2019 Act's enforcement architecture gives authorised officers powers to require documents and information for the purposes of investigating whether an offence has been committed, subject to legal professional privilege. Your advertising, referencing criteria, CRM notes and email trail are all disclosable.

• Convictions feed the fit and proper person test
  Local authorities notify Rent Smart Wales of convictions under the Act, and Rent Smart Wales must take them into account. A fine is survivable. A licence refusal is not, because without a licence you cannot lawfully carry out letting or management activity in Wales, and an unlicensed landlord risks a rent stopping order.

So the compliance picture is two-track. Section 87 is a civil debt owed to your contract-holder that you extinguish by serving a document. Part 2A is a criminal exposure you extinguish by changing how you select and treat people.

Who Counts as a Benefits Claimant

Broader than most landlords assume. Under section 8J, it covers a person entitled to payments under or by virtue of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 or the Welfare Reform Act 2012, including someone who would be entitled were they to become a contract-holder, as well as payments under the Jobseekers Act 1995, State Pension Credit Act 2002, Tax Credits Act 2002, Welfare Reform Act 2007 or Pensions Act 2014, and a person in receipt of a council tax reduction. Payments made directly to the landlord count.

Someone who does not think of themselves as "on benefits" may well be a benefits claimant for these purposes. The practical consequence is that an affordability rule which only counts employment income, or a guarantor requirement triggered specifically by benefit income, is exposed even where nobody intended to discriminate.

What "Proportionate Means of Achieving a Legitimate Aim" Allows

Section 54A is qualified, and landlords have been reading that qualification too generously. It is not a general discretion to refuse children.

No reported Welsh decision on this wording has been published to date, so anyone telling you exactly where the line falls is guessing. What can be said is that the aim must be legitimate and the restriction proportionate to it, meaning you need an actual, documented, property-specific reason, and no less restrictive way of achieving it. Statutory overcrowding standards, a condition on an HMO licence, or a planning restriction on occupancy are the kinds of thing that could plausibly qualify. "The property isn't suitable for children," a landlord's preference, and a blanket portfolio policy are not.

If you rely on this, write down the reason at the time, tied to the specific dwelling. A justification reconstructed after a complaint is worth very little.

What to Do Today

Serve the written statement now. There is no benefit to waiting. Serving the required statement stops further compensation from accruing, although it does not remove liability that may already have arisen.

Then, in order:

1. Pull the affected list:
   Every secure, periodic standard and fixed term standard contract in your Welsh portfolio. Check what was served and when, not what you intended, and not what you believe your agent did. Portfolios that hold lease and contract records in one system can answer this in an afternoon; portfolios running on spreadsheets and inboxes generally cannot.
   
   
2. Verify agent service per property:
   Ask for evidence: date, method, recipient and the document itself. Some larger platforms served automatically for contracts they hold, and that does not cover contracts they merely let and handed back to you. The duty is the landlord's regardless.
   
   
3. Apply the exclusions properly, and check your term numbering:
   Supported standard contracts are treated differently, and the new terms are numbered differently across the model written statements. Serving the wrong or an inaccurate statement is its own problem, because an incorrect written statement carries its own compensation route under section 37.
   
   
4. Check the insurance position for both terms:
   Each new fundamental term has its own insurance carve-out. It applies where the landlord or a superior landlord is insured under an existing contract of insurance to which section 8H does not apply, and which requires the insured to prohibit or restrict the relevant thing: children living at or visiting the dwelling for section 54A, benefits claims for section 54B. This is narrow, it turns on the policy wording and its date, and your policy does not otherwise excuse you. Raise it with your insurer at renewal rather than discovering the conflict during a claim.
   
   
5. Audit the front end:
   Portal listings, your own website, application forms, referencing criteria, affordability calculations, guarantor policies, and the scripts your team uses on the phone. This is the Part 2A half, and no document sent to an existing contract-holder fixes it.
   
   
6. Record service properly:
   Date, method, recipient, document version. If a set-off dispute arrives in six months, your evidence of service is the entire case. An auditable record across the portfolio is the difference between a two-email resolution and a hearing.

Where This Sits in the Wider Welsh Picture

It is worth being clear about the boundary, because a great deal of published guidance has got it wrong.

This is the extent of the Renters' Rights Act in Wales. The Decent Homes Standard, the abolition of fixed terms, the PRS Database, the private rented sector Ombudsman, Awaab's Law in the private sector: none of it applies here. Wales already regulates property condition through the fitness for human habitation duty in sections 91 and 92 of the 2016 Act, and the 29 matters and circumstances in the 2022 Regulations. If you have read that the Decent Homes Standard arrives in Wales in 2026, you have read an English guide with the word "Wales" pasted on it.

Nor has Wales followed England on possession. Since England abolished section 21 on 1 May 2026, Wales has been the only nation in Great Britain where a private landlord can still end a contract without giving a reason, using a section 173 notice. It carries the longest notice period in the UK at six months, cannot be served within the first six months of occupation, and cannot be served at all during a running fixed term.

The direction of travel is worth watching. Welsh Government consulted on requiring landlords to pay compensation when serving a section 173 notice and, after consultation, decided not to proceed. That proposal is dead, and blogs still asserting it as law are out of date. But Westminster has now legislated into Welsh occupation contracts with Senedd consent, and legislation.gov.uk already records further powers to amend the 2016 Act conferred by a 2026 Act of Senedd Cymru. This area is not finished moving.

Conclusion

Two obligations landed on the same day, and only one of them was a document.

The written statement was a paperwork duty with a short window and a daily price. A lot of Welsh landlords missed it, including plenty who run otherwise tidy portfolios and simply had their attention on England that month. That one is fixable this afternoon, and every day it stays unfixed costs a day's rent per contract-holder until you hit the ceiling.

The conduct duty is the one that outlasts the deadline. It has no expiry date, it reaches your agent, it is enforced by people with information-gathering powers, and it lands on the desk of the body that renews your licence.

The order of operations is therefore simple, and it is the same whether you hold two properties or two hundred. Serve the written statements today, because that stops money leaving. Audit what was actually served and when, because that is your evidence if a set-off dispute arrives. Then go through how you advertise, reference and select, because that is where the criminal exposure sits and no amount of correct paperwork will touch it.

The landlords who come out of this well will not be the ones who never made a mistake. They will be the ones who found it quickly, fixed it in the right order, and can prove what they did.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I still serve the written statement now?
Yes, and you should, today. Late service does not undo compensation already accrued, but it stops further accrual and, if you have not yet reached the two-month ceiling, caps your exposure below the maximum.

2. I use a letting agent. Am I covered?
The written statement duty sits with the landlord. Verify rather than assume, per property, and get evidence. On the discrimination side, an agent acting on your behalf can expose you both.

3. My contract-holder hasn't complained. Is there anything to fix?
Compensation under section 87 accrues by operation of the statute, not on complaint. It can be raised months later, as a set-off against rent or as a defence to a possession claim. Silence now is not a resolution.

4. What about contracts starting after 1 June 2026?
New written statements should already incorporate the terms. Current model written statements and up-to-date trade body templates handle this. A template you last touched in 2023 does not.

5. Does any of this affect my Rent Smart Wales licence?
The written statement failure, not directly. A conviction under the discrimination provisions, yes. Local authorities notify Rent Smart Wales, and it must consider convictions when assessing whether you are a fit and proper person at renewal.

6. Is there a fixed penalty for getting this wrong?
For the discrimination offences, yes. Section 13 of the 2019 Act was amended to extend fixed penalty notices to Part 2A, and the penalty is currently £1,000, which Welsh Ministers may vary by regulations. A fixed penalty is an opportunity to discharge liability to conviction rather than a ceiling on consequences: prosecution remains available where no notice is given or the penalty is unpaid, and the Act contemplates conduct continuing beyond 28 days from a notice that has not been withdrawn. There is no fixed penalty attached to the written statement failure itself. That exposure is the section 87 compensation owed to your contract-holder.

7. Does the Decent Homes Standard now apply to my Welsh property?
No. That provision of the Renters' Rights Act applies in England. Wales regulates condition through the fitness for human habitation duty under the 2016 Act.

Important Notice

This article applies to Wales only. Housing law is devolved and the position differs in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Wales operates under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which uses occupation contracts and contract-holders rather than tenancies and tenants. Guidance written for England does not apply here, and only a small part of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 extends to Wales.

Information was checked against legislation.gov.uk and Welsh Government guidance available as at 19 August 2026. Further regulations, commencement orders and Welsh Government guidance are expected, and legislation.gov.uk currently records powers to amend the 2016 Act that are not yet applied. Notice periods, prescribed forms, model written statements, restricted periods, penalties, court fees and procedural requirements may change. Court fees for possession claims in Wales are set on the England and Wales schedule and are revised periodically, so verify current fees before issuing.

Always check the current position on GOV.WALES, Rent Smart Wales and legislation.gov.uk before serving any notice, written statement or beginning possession proceedings.

This content is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. RIOO is not a law firm. Possession proceedings and compensation disputes carry significant legal and financial consequences. Consult a housing solicitor qualified in Welsh housing law before taking action.