Archive of the MHCLG ‘How to Rent’ booklets. The booklet must be served on the tenant before a section 21 notice can be served for all new and replacement tenancies from 1 October 2015. If the booklet was previously served, then at the start of each ‘replacement’ tenancy, there is no requirement to re-serve the booklet unless it has been updated.
As the MHCLG and Gov UK site apparently will not be providing a method to check which version of the handbook was current at a given date, which will actually be crucial for checking whether a s.21 has been validly served, we will try to catalogue them here, by release date.
1 October 2015 – Download here.
1 February 2016 – Download here
17 January 2018 – Download here
26 June 2018 – Download here
6 July 2018 (‘backdated’ to 26 June 2018) – Download here (An explanation of what happened is here)
31 May 2019 – Download here
Since 31 May 2019, there have been two ‘silent’ changes to the guide – hidden by MHCLG and still both billed as ‘v.4’. MHCLG really shouldn’t do this, given the significance of the document. The gov.uk page still says last updated 31 May 2019.
3 June 2019 – download here – (changing the reference and link on page 5 from “NALS” to “Safeagent”)
29 July 2019 – download here – (changing the wording on page 4 from “If you don’t have a guarantor, you can ask Shelter for help.” to “…ask Shelter for advice.”)
[Update 15 August 2019 – the current ‘How to rent’ guide pdf remains dated ‘May 2019’ at the bottom. This may well be a cause of confusion, for example for tenants thinking they have not received the latest version. Unfortunately, the only way to check is to look at the text on page 4 and 5 to see if it includes the two changes.]
10 December 2020 – Download here (Adds electrical safety regs and an odd warning that section 21 still applies even though it will be scrapped in the future.)
21 July 2021 – Download here. Confusingly, there doesn’t appear to be any change to the Guide. What has changed is the addition of an ‘easy read’ version – download here. The status of the ‘easy read’ version is not exactly clear – is it an alternative, so can be provided as the only version, or does it have to be provided with the Guide? And similarly, in providing the Guide, does the ‘easy read’ version now also have to be provided? And, assuming that the easy read version gets updated in the future, will they manage to update it at the same time as the Guide?
24 March 2023 – Download here.
2 October 2023 – Download here. (Adds HLPAS scheme.)