Section 14 (determination of rent by tribunal) of the Housing Act 1988 sets out how rent can be challenged in the Tribunal. The Tribunal will assess the proposed rent against what the landlord could expect to receive if letting to a new tenant on the open market. The new rent payable will be the lower of the Tribunal-determined open-market rent and either the tenancy rent (if challenged in the first six months of the tenancy) or the rent proposed in the section 13 notice. The landlord and tenant can agree in writing to a lower rent than what the Tribunal has determined but higher than the current rent. The ability to challenge a rent amount in the first six months of a tenancy has similar effect to the existing provisions of section 22 of the Housing Act 1988.
	A tenant can use the forms published by the Tribunal for the purpose of making an application to challenge a section 13 rent increase notice, or to challenge a rent amount in the first six months of the tenancy. The Secretary of State had previously prescribed and published forms for these purposes assured tenancy forms 6 and 7. These will be withdrawn by statutory instrument. This change will support the aim of encouraging applicants to use the Tribunal’s forms for making an application to the Tribunal, and all the forms used to make an application to the Tribunal will be published in the same place.
Part 1: Tenancy reform Chapter 1: Assured Tenancies Section 7: Challenging amount or increase of rent Background