Rightmove's latest rent figures came out the other week. The average advertised rent outside London is now £1,418 a month, a new record and 2.4% higher than a year ago. In London it is £2,825. The number of homes available to rent is 2% lower than last year across the country and 9% lower in the capital. Fewer homes, steady demand, and prices still edging up.
For a landlord with an empty room or flat, that kind of market produces a very particular moment. You advertise at a fair figure, the enquiries arrive, and somebody says the words that used to be music: would you take a bit more? Until May, you could say yes. Now you cannot, and the fine is up to £7,000.
Here is the rule, from the government's own guide for landlords. You or your letting agent cannot ask for, encourage or accept an offer that is higher than the advertised rent. Three verbs, and all three matter.
Ask for is the obvious one. "Offers over £1,400" is out, and so is a range. The advert has to state one specific amount.
Encourage covers the quieter habits. Telling an applicant that other people have offered more, or that there has been a lot of interest so they may want to make their offer count, is encouraging a higher bid. The guide goes further and says anything that makes someone think they have to offer more is caught.
Accept is the one that catches honest landlords. The ban is not aimed only at people who run auctions. If an applicant offers more than the advert, unprompted, in writing, with a smile, you still cannot take it. The guidance makes no exception for offers you did not ask for, so I treat the advertised figure as a flat ceiling.
What counts as an advert is wider than you might think. Online listings, printed adverts, social media posts, and messages such as emails and texts are all written adverts. A To Let board outside the property is the one thing the guide says is not.
On enforcement, this sits with the council. The guide says a council can ask you for the advert, the tenancy agreement and a statement, and that you can be reported after the tenancy has been signed. So an agreement showing £1,500 against an advert showing £1,400 is the whole case, in two documents. A first breach is up to £7,000. Repeat the same type of breach within five years and the second one carries up to £7,000 plus up to another £7,000 on top.
So here is how I run a re-let now.
Set the rent deliberately before the advert goes live, not during the enquiries. Look at what comparable homes nearby actually let for, decide your figure, and put that single number in the advert.
Say the rent once, in every channel. The listing, the reply on your phone, the email to the applicant, all the same figure. A text quoting a different number is itself an advert as far as the guide is concerned.
Choose on suitability, not on money. You are still free to pick between applicants. Affordability, references, the right fit for a shared house. What you cannot do is pick the one who offered more, or let the sum they offered colour the decision.
When someone offers more, decline in writing. One line does it: the rent is as advertised and I am not able to accept more. It also protects you if that applicant later claims they were outbid.
If you got the figure wrong, take the advert down and relist. The guide does not address this directly, but as I read the rules, resetting the asking rent openly, for everyone to see, is a pricing decision. Quietly accepting one applicant's higher offer is a bidding war. Those are different things, and only one of them is legal.
Watch your agent. The guide says "you or your letting agent" and puts no gap between the two. If the agent is nudging applicants upwards, it is your advert and your tenancy they are doing it on. Ask them in writing how they handle offers above the asking rent.
From my own portfolio: a tenant in one of my shared houses gave notice earlier this month. A new job a long way north, and a clean two months' notice, exactly as the new rules allow. Within hours of the room going live I had a handful of replies, and that is the moment this issue is really about. Years ago the question in my head would have been which of them might stretch a little further. Now the figure in the advert is the figure, and I find that a relief. The decision becomes about who will look after the house and pay on time, which is the decision I should have been making all along. The rent was set before I pressed publish, and it will be the rent on the agreement.
The temptation, in a market where supply is tight and the headlines say record rents, is to see a higher offer as a gift. I would not. It is the one piece of evidence a council needs, and the applicant who made the offer is the person most likely to hand it over later, when a repair is slow or the deposit is in dispute.
The takeaway: rents are at record highs and you cannot take more than you advertised. Not if you ask, not if you hint, and not if the applicant offers. One specific figure in every advert and every message, choose on references rather than rent, decline higher offers in writing, and if you priced it wrong, relist openly. A first breach is up to £7,000, and the advert and the agreement are the whole case against you.
I am a landlord, not a solicitor, so check your own situation before you act on any of this. And if you know a landlord whose agent still writes "offers invited", send them this. That phrase now costs money.