Letting agent software with the Renters' Rights Act built in

What is letting agent software?

Letting agent software is one system that runs a tenancy from the first enquiry to the day the tenant leaves: the applicant, the viewing, referencing, the agreement, the rent, the repairs, the certificates and the landlord's statement. It replaces the spreadsheets, shared inboxes, diaries and separate systems that make a busy agency key the same tenancy in again and again.

That re-keying is common. A survey of letting agents by Propoly, reported by Property118 in September 2026, found that only 17% use one main system and 61% re-key information between systems during a single tenancy, while 73% said their workload has risen since the Renters' Rights Act. About 4.7 million households rent privately in England, 19% of all households according to the English Housing Survey, and every one of their tenancies now runs by the new rules.

Our lettings portal puts the agency, its tenants and its landlords in the same system, so a repair reported by a tenant, approved by a landlord and invoiced by a contractor ends up on the right statement without anyone typing it twice. It is the kind of business system we build around how a company really works.

What does the Renters' Rights Act change for letting agents?

The Renters' Rights Act applied in England from 1 May 2026. Fixed terms and section 21 notices have gone, and the rules for rent, notice, pets and advertising have changed. Local councils can fine up to £7,000 for a minor breach and up to £40,000 for a serious or repeated one, so the safest place for the rules is inside the system your team uses every day.

The portal checks each rule before your team acts and tracks every deadline the Act creates:

• Periodic tenancies: every tenancy is an assured periodic tenancy, with no fixed term or renewal. A tenant's notice is recorded with the date it ends, at least two months and ending on a rent day, and the Ending list shows every let with notice
• Documents tenants must be given: the Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet for tenancies that started before 1 May 2026, or the written statement of terms for later ones, tracked on each tenancy until it is given
• Section 13 rent increases: the earliest date an increase can start, worked out from the start of the tenancy, the last increase and two months' notice, with any date that breaks a rule refused with the reason and the nearest date that works
• Section 8 possession notices: every ground with its notice period and restrictions, grounds that cannot be used yet refused with the earliest date they could be, ground 8 arrears checked against the rent ledger, and the earliest date to apply to court
• Pet requests: the 28 day clock on every request, and a reason required before a landlord can refuse
• Rental bidding: every letting has an asking rent, and an offer above it cannot be accepted
• Advert wording: wording that turns away families or people on benefits, such as No DSS, is refused before a listing goes to the portals
• Register your rental property: each landlord's registration number and each letting's registration ID, with the deadline for the property's region tracked on the compliance board. Registration rolls out region by region from 15 December 2026, starting with the West Midlands

A Renters' Rights Act panel on the dashboard counts what needs doing now: information sheets outstanding, pet requests due a reply, rent increases that could be served, possession notices in progress and properties not yet registered. The portal prints summaries for your file and links to the official GOV.UK forms, such as Form 4A and Form 3A, which are what you serve. It supports your team's judgement, and it is not legal advice.

Try our live letting agent software demo

The quickest way to judge letting agent software is to use it, so we built a working agency you can try now at lettings-demo.varsuite.co.uk.

The demo is Ribblecroft Residential, a fictional letting agency in Clitheroe that manages 150 properties across East Lancashire, with landlords, tenants, contractors, repairs and Renters' Rights Act cases already under way. You can sign in as:

• the director, with the dashboard, the Renters' Rights Act panel and the whole agency
• a lettings negotiator, with the lettings pipeline, applicants, viewings in the diary and the Ending list
• a property manager, with maintenance, contractors and the compliance board
• accounts, with rent, arrears, contractor invoices, landlord statements and the VAT report
• a landlord, in the landlord portal with their properties, money, certificates, pet requests and rent reviews
• a tenant, in the tenant portal with their rent, repairs, documents, notice and a pet request

Every visitor gets their own private copy, so nothing you change affects anyone else, and you can reset it whenever you like. Sign in is protected by a second step, as in a real agency, with the demo code shown on screen. Text messages and the Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket feeds are simulated in the demo, and every email lands in an outbox you can read rather than being sent.

What does the lettings portal include?

The portal is built from modules, and each agency switches on what it needs:

• Lettings pipeline: enquiry to move in on one board, with applicants, viewings in the diary, referencing and the agreement signed online
• Tenancies: periodic tenancies with notice, rent reviews, possession notices, documents given and a full history
• Rent and arrears: rent charged and matched, arrears reminders and no rent taken before the agreement is signed
• Landlord money: contractor invoices, landlord statements and the monthly VAT report
• Maintenance: tenants report repairs with photos, contractors are sent the job, and landlords approve quotes in their portal
• Compliance board: gas safety, electrical, EPC, alarms, deposits, right to rent, property registration and tenancy documents for every property, with reminders at 60, 30 and 7 days and the certificates attached
• Tenant portal: rent, repairs, documents, giving notice, pet requests and online signing
• Landlord portal: properties, money, certificates, repair quotes to approve, pet requests to answer and rent reviews
• Property portal feeds: listings built for Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket, checked for the asking rent and advert wording before they go
• Messages: email and text to one tenant or every landlord at once, from your own templates, with a copy kept on each record
• Data import: landlords, properties, tenants and tenancies brought in from a CSV export of your current system, checked row by row before anything is saved

How do the tenant and landlord portals work?

Tenants and landlords get their own logins, protected by a code sent by email, and only ever see their own records.

A tenant sees their rent and what they owe, reports a repair with photos, downloads their documents, signs their agreement online, gives notice and asks to keep a pet. A landlord sees their properties, rent received, statements and certificates, approves or rejects a contractor's quote, answers a pet request within the 28 days and sees the rent reviews and any possession notices on their properties.

Because both portals run on the same records as the agency, a repair reported by a tenant on Monday can be quoted, approved by the landlord, done and on the statement without a single phone call or forwarded email. Portals like these are something we build for many kinds of business, as our customer portals page explains.

Moving from your current lettings software

Directors and managers import landlords, properties, tenants and tenancies from CSV files exported from the system you use today. Every row is checked with the same rules as the forms, and the preview lists the rows that need fixing before anything is saved. Common column headings from other systems are recognised, records already in the portal are skipped, and end dates on current tenancies are ignored because every tenancy is now periodic.

Where data has to keep flowing between systems, such as your accounts package, referencing provider or the property portals, our data integrations work connects them.

How we tailor it to your agency

This is not off the shelf software that you bend your agency to fit. Everything in the demo is a starting point, and we fine tune it for you. We start by walking through the demo with your team and noting what you would change, then shape the portal around the answers:

• your branches, staff roles and who approves what
• your fees, rent collection and how you produce landlord statements
• your letters, emails, texts and agreements, in your branding
• your compliance checks, licensing areas and the reminders you send
• your data, brought across from your current system
• your integrations, such as accounting software, referencing, deposit schemes and the property portals

The Renters' Rights Act rules in the demo follow the GOV.UK guidance as it stood in October 2026, and region dates for Register your rental property are kept in one place so they can be updated as the government announces them. The demo is a sample agency, not legal advice, so check anything you are unsure of with a solicitor or a lettings body.