The Renters’ Rights Act Is Coming: Why Bulletproof Evidence Will Make Or Break Deposit Disputes

The private rented sector in England is about to change more in the next few years than it has in the last few decades. With the Renters’ Rights Act now on the statute book and due to start rolling out from 1 May 2026, landlords and letting agents are facing a new era of tenant rights, regulatory scrutiny and expectations around evidence.

In this landscape, “good enough” inventories and inspection reports will not be enough. If you want to avoid disputes, protect your margins and show you are a professional operator, you need a digital, audit ready evidence trail for every property.

This is exactly where smart inventory software like Kaptur comes into its own.

What the Renters’ Rights Act actually changes

The Renters’ Rights Act introduces a set of reforms that tilt the balance of power towards tenants and make the tenancy relationship more transparent.

Key changes include:

• Abolition of Section 21 “no fault” evictions
• A move to rolling assured periodic tenancies
• Stronger rules around rent increases and bidding wars
• Extra enforcement powers and funding for local authorities
• A new national landlord database and ombudsman service

In practice, this means more tenancies will end through formal processes where evidence is carefully examined. If you make deductions from a deposit or seek possession based on damage or breach of terms, you will be expected to prove your case with clear documentation.

Paper notes, a handful of photos on someone’s phone or a “we always do it this way” approach will not cut it.

 

Deposit disputes: why evidence is now everything

Deposit protection schemes already place heavy weight on independent evidence. Guidance from Shelter and the tenancy deposit schemes is clear. In a dispute, adjudicators expect to see:

• A signed inventory or check in report
• A detailed check out report
• Date stamped photos or video
• A copy of the tenancy agreement
• Invoices or quotes that justify costs

If your evidence is weak or inconsistent, the default position is usually to side with the tenant. Recent commentary from landlord and tenant bodies highlights the same pattern. When there is no proper inventory, landlords lose more disputes, particularly around cleaning, damage and missing items.

Layer the Renters’ Rights Act on top of this and the bar rises again. Stronger tenant rights plus more structured enforcement means the quality of your reports becomes a genuine business risk, not just a nice-to-have.

 

Councils and courts are under pressure to act

Councils have historically struggled to enforce housing standards because of stretched budgets and limited staff. Between 2022 and 2024, research found that most English councils did not prosecute a single landlord, despite hundreds of thousands of complaints.

New legislation is designed to change that direction of travel. Alongside the Renters’ Rights Act, measures such as Awaab’s Law for social housing are signalling a much tougher stance on unsafe homes and poor practice.

For letting agents and landlords, this means:

• More inspections where documentation will be requested
• More tenants who know their rights and understand how to challenge decisions
• More expectation that landlords can demonstrate they have acted reasonably

If you have robust, consistent reports stored in one place, showing a clear timeline of property condition, your risk is significantly reduced.

 

Why spreadsheets and ad hoc photos are no longer enough

Many agencies still rely on:

• Word or Excel templates that different staff edit in different ways
• Email chains with photos attached
• Paper forms that must be scanned and filed
• Reports saved in shared drives or individual inboxes

These methods are slow, hard to standardise and easy to lose. More importantly, they make it difficult to prove that a report is:

• Complete
• Time stamped
• Unaltered since it was signed
• Shared with the tenant in a fair way

When a dispute arises, your team ends up scrabbling through folders trying to piece together a narrative. Time is wasted, confidence is shaken and your ability to defend deductions is weakened.

 

How Kaptur turns your reporting into a compliance asset

Kaptur was built to solve exactly this problem for property professionals.

Instead of juggling multiple systems, you can centralise everything in one platform with:

• Structured, evidence first reports that prompt clerks or negotiators to capture the right detail every time
• High resolution, time stamped photos embedded directly into the report, not stored separately on devices
• Digital signatures with DigiSign, giving tenants a clear, traceable way to review, comment and sign off reports online
• Secure lifetime storage of every report, so you can retrieve the full history in seconds if a dispute lands on your desk
• Over 100 audit ready templates for inventories, check outs, routine property visits and compliance checks

Because Kaptur runs on a mobile app with offline capability, clerks and agents can capture data on site, even in basements or rural locations. Jobs, status and team performance are then visible in live dashboards, so managers can see exactly what has been completed and where follow up is needed.

 

Scaling your evidence gathering with Konnect

For many agencies, the challenge is not just quality but capacity. When you open a new branch, win a block management contract or hit peak season, it can be hard to cover all inspections with in house staff.

Kaptur’s Konnect network solves this by giving you access to more than 400 vetted clerks and inspectors across the UK, all working through the same reporting framework.

You keep control of:

• Your branding
• Your templates
• Your workflows

While Konnect provides the extra hands when you need them. That means you can maintain the same standard of evidence on every property, even as your portfolio grows.

 

Practical steps to get ready now

You do not need to wait until 2026 to start future proofing your reporting.

Over the next 6 to 12 months, consider:

1. Auditing your current reports
   Pick a sample of inventories, inspections and check outs. Would they stand up in a dispute or tribunal?
2. Standardising your templates
   Align formats across branches and teams so every report tells the same clear story.
3. Going fully digital
   Move away from paper or mixed approaches. Choose a single platform that covers capture, storage and sharing.
4. Training your team
   Make sure negotiators, clerks and property managers understand how the new rules change their responsibilities.
5. Planning for peaks
   Decide how you will handle busy periods without dropping reporting standards. This is where Konnect can make a real difference.

 

Turn reporting from a headache into a genuine advantage

The Renters’ Rights Act is not just a compliance challenge. It is also an opportunity to show that your agency is transparent, professional and serious about doing the right thing.

With Kaptur, you can transform inventories and inspections from admin tasks into a strategic asset that:

• Protects your income
• Reduces disputes
• Builds trust with tenants and landlords
• Demonstrates that you are ahead of regulation, not chasing it

If you would like to see how digital, evidence rich reporting could work across your portfolio, you can start a free, no obligation trial of Kaptur and explore the full feature set without entering card details.