You're about to sign for a house with four coursemates for the year, and the contract still says "12-month fixed term". A friend told you fixed terms were abolished. Someone else said your landlord can throw you out in the summer. Both of those can't be right, and you're the one about to put your name to it.
Here's what changed in England. Since 1 May 2026, the Renters' Rights Act 2025 has required new private assured tenancies to be periodic rather than fixed-term. A student signing for 2026/27 gets a rolling periodic tenancy instead. You can leave it with two months' notice, and to take the house back for the next intake of students your landlord needs a specific possession ground, called Ground 4A, with four months' warning.
This guide walks through what that means for you, or for a parent about to guarantee the rent.
Do students still sign a 12-month fixed-term tenancy in 2026?
No. In England, a new private assured tenancy agreed from 1 May 2026 is periodic, so there is no fixed term to sign up to, even if the paperwork the letting agent hands you still uses the old wording. A term locking you in for 12 months has no legal force.
That cuts both ways, and it's worth being honest about it. You are not tied to the house for the year. Neither is your housemate who might drop out in November. The security of "we've all signed for the year" is gone, replaced by a more flexible arrangement a group of students needs to think through together before anyone signs. Our guide to the assured periodic tenancy under the Renters' Rights Act explains how the tenancy type works.
Can you leave a student house share early under the Renters' Rights Act?
Yes. Because the tenancy is periodic, you can end it by giving your landlord two months' written notice, timed to end on the last day of a tenancy period. You don't need the landlord's permission and you don't need a reason.
For students that's a real change. If you get a placement in another city, transfer course, or the house share falls apart, you're no longer trapped paying rent on a room you've left. The catch on a joint tenancy is that one joint tenant's notice may end the tenancy for everyone, so the group needs to talk, and take advice, before anyone serves it. The mechanics of serving notice, and getting the dates right, are in our guide on how to end a tenancy with notice to quit in 2026.
What is Ground 4A and when can a student landlord evict you?
Ground 4A is the new possession ground that lets a landlord of qualifying student accommodation recover it at the end of the academic year, so they can re-let it to next year's students. It exists because, with fixed terms gone, landlords needed a way to keep their letting cycle lined up with the university year.
Ground 4A is mandatory, but it is not a shortcut around the legal process. A landlord can only rely on it if all of these are true:
- The property is an HMO, or the home covered by your tenancy is within an HMO. A typical shared-house HMO has at least three occupants from more than one household who share facilities, but bedroom count alone does not decide this condition.
- When the tenancy was agreed, every tenant was a full-time student or the landlord reasonably believed each of them would become one during the tenancy.
- Before the tenancy was agreed, the landlord gave you a written statement saying they wanted to be able to recover possession because you met that student test and they intended to let the property to qualifying students next.
- No more than six months passed between agreeing the tenancy and the date you first had the right to occupy the property.
- The date in the Ground 4A notice falls between 1 June and 30 September.
- The landlord genuinely intends to let the property to qualifying students the next time it is let.
If the landlord cannot establish any one of those conditions, Ground 4A is not made out. If they establish every condition and follow the correct notice and court process, the judge must make a possession order. This is also why a landlord letting to students asks everyone to confirm they are full-time: a single tenant who does not meet the student test takes the whole tenancy outside the ground.
How much notice must a student landlord give to take the house back?
A Ground 4A notice has to give you at least four months, and it can only require you to leave between 1 June and 30 September. A landlord cannot use it to clear the house in the middle of term.
There was a temporary exception for tenancies that began before 1 May 2026. A landlord could give the required written Ground 4A warning by 31 May and then serve a two-month notice between 1 May and 30 July 2026; the six-month advance-signing condition did not apply. That service window has closed by this article's publication date, but a notice served during it may still be active, so it is not necessarily invalid just because it gives less than four months.
So the realistic picture is this. You sign for 2026/27, you live there through the year, and if the landlord wants the house back for the next intake they serve notice that ends over the summer. You get four months to plan around it. What they cannot do is spring a Ground 4A eviction on you in January. Other possession grounds, such as serious rent arrears or a serious breach of the tenancy, work separately and can still apply during the year, so Ground 4A is not a shield against everything.
If a landlord tries to remove you without a valid notice or a court order, that is a different and more serious problem. Our guide on whether a landlord can evict without a court order covers where the line sits.
Does the Renters' Rights Act cover purpose-built student accommodation?
Mostly not, and that surprises people. University halls and private purpose-built student accommodation from a provider signed up to a government-approved code sit outside the assured tenancy system. The periodic-tenancy rules and Ground 4A above are about houses and flats let on the open market, not a room in a managed block.
In practice your rights in purpose-built accommodation come from your contract and the code your provider follows, not from the assured tenancy changes. Read the cancellation and release terms in that contract closely, because they decide whether you can leave early and what you'd pay. If you're weighing a shared house against a managed block, our overview of how HMOs work for renters helps you compare the two on rights as well as rent.
What to check before you sign a student tenancy for 2026/27
Four things are worth pinning down before you put your name to anything. Is there a written Ground 4A warning in the paperwork, so a summer possession is no surprise? Are all your housemates full-time students, so the tenancy sits where you think it does? Will your deposit be protected in a government-approved scheme within 30 days? And does everyone understand that one person's notice may end a joint tenancy for all of you?
Get those straight and you're signing with your eyes open. A student tenancy in 2026 gives you more freedom to leave than the old fixed term ever did, in exchange for a bit less certainty that the group will hold together for the year.
If a contract clause looks like it's trying to lock you in past what the law allows, Remedy can review your student tenancy agreement and tell you which terms bind you and which don't.
